Shatter: ‘Boomtime homebuyer must not be sacrificial lamb’

Nobody who bought a reasonably sized home during the boom should be a sacrificial lamb to the mistakes made by the financial institutions, Justice Minister Alan Shatter said yesterday.

He warned the banks that if they did not realistically engage with new legislation on personal insolvency — designed to help debt-ridden mortgage holders reach agreements with their creditors — he will revisit the matter.

Mr Shatter told the Oireachtas select committee on justice considering the new Personal Insolvency Bill that not all creditors were evil and not all debtors were saints.