Vulture funds must be included in plans to ease pressure on renters and home owners - McGrath

Fianna Fáil's Finance spokesperson Michael McGrath has said the country does not need “some complex, cumbersome scheme” regarding a freeze on mortgage payments.

Thousands of people will be unable to continue with their repayments in the weeks ahead, and they need “simplicity and speed,” he told RTÉ radio’s Morning Ireland.

People need to have an ability to simply opt for a freeze on their repayments for a number of months, and this will need to be on a rolling basis, he added.

“But there is another group of people that the minister needs to be meeting. Increasingly over the last number of years the banks have been selling on loan portfolios to non bank loan owners, including vulture funds.

“They now own well in excess of 100,000 mortgages in Ireland.

They too need to be spoken to and the people whose loans have been sold need an assurance that they too will be treated with respect and will be afforded the time and space to get through this difficult period.

Mr McGrath said while he is expecting landlords to “cut some slack” to tenants, those landlords also need to be given the same freeze on payments to enable the tenant to benefit.

A system wide solution is needed to avoid getting “bogged down in red tape and bureaucracy.”

Alongside all of this, there will be a need for work to commence on an economic recovery plan.

“The focus for now will quite rightly be on public health, and that's what we need to prioritise.

“But in parallel, we need a team of people working on how to reboot the economy, because a lot of sectors are going to be very badly damaged.

It's not simply a question of clicking a switch when this is all over and expecting things to get back to normal, we are looking at a multi-billion euro economic recovery plan and that needs to be prepared now.”

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Minister for Social Protection Regina Doherty called on landlords to acknowledge that we are "all in this together".

"We're in this together. Somebody who doesn't have anything more than 203 quid a week, they're going to buy food," Ms Doherty said.

Ms Doherty said she understood the new Pandemic Unemployment Payment of €203 per week to help people who have lost their job may not be high enough for those paying rent.

She called on landlords to have some understanding during this time.

Ms Doherty said: "If people can't afford to pay their rents, they're not going to be able to magic up some money between now and the end of the month, the end of next month.

"Everybody needs to be mindful and cognisant that we will get through this and come out the other end."

Meanwhile, Joe Doyle of the Residential Landlords Association has said his members have been told by the banks that their difficulties are not the banks’ concern.

Speaking on RTÉ's Today with Sean O'Rourke, he said there was “widespread concern across the board.”

Mr Doyle said that the average landlord in Ireland was a typical self-employed person that owned maybe two properties because they don't have a pension.

Most of these properties have got mortgages on them, he said.

“The amount of forbearance that landlords will be in a position to offer to tenants is directly linked to the forbearance that's offered to them by their lenders.”

Mr Doyle said members of his association had been told by banks that financial difficulties related to the virus were not their problem and they should be “the last point of call.”

That was “absolutely crazy,” he said. Banks need to “step up to the plate” like every other entity.

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