Mortgage resolution - Families can’t be sacrificed

IF asked to choose between supporting a family unable to repay a mortgage that was once manageable or foreclosing bankers the vast majority of Irish people will, without hesitation and maybe even with a degree of satisfaction, support the embattled family or individual.

As that situation is increasingly common we will have to find a way to put a practical structure on that very emotional but absolutely correct response. We simply cannot turn people out of their homes because they are unable, despite sincere efforts, to repay home loans taken out in entirely different circumstances.

Some families have already gone through their savings, and some of the parents’, siblings’ and friends’ savings too, in an effort to play by the rules, in a desperate effort not to fall into arrears. These efforts are just a finger in the dyke and unless we move to help them they will drown in the inevitable deluge.