Why the Government isn’t interested in solving our mortgage debt crisis

FORMER US President Bill Clinton has identified a priority for the Irish economy that is not shared by the vast bulk of our elected politicians, or indeed many citizens of this State.

Speaking at the Global Irish Economic Forum last Saturday he said that dealing effectively with private mortgage debt was possibly the most important issue involved in the rebuilding of the Irish economy and society. This was an extraordinary statement because Irish politicians have run from the issue wherever possible over the last two years.

They have done so for three main reasons. One is the likely cost of trying to resolve the problem, because the Government would have to compensate the State-owned banks for whatever mutli-billion losses they would incur in dealing with the issue. The second is that it would be very difficult to come up with a scheme in which non-state controlled banks, foreign owned ones in other words, would take part (and half of those in arrears have their loans with such banks). The third is that any measures to bail out the highly indebted would be hated by those who did not incur high debts during the boom years. As far as they are concerned they should not be punished financially for their good sense — any scheme would have to be funded by their taxes or by a reduction in the public services they consume.