Housing market dysfunction - Did bankers not learn the hard lesson?

It is astonishing and frightening that the Central Bank feels obliged to intervene in the mortgage market to outlaw practices at the root of our economic collapse.

The intervention suggests that some banks are indifferent to the idea of social responsibility and, for “good business reasons” no doubt, are again prepared to offer the kind of mortgage packages that led to continuing hardship for so many people.

The ruling means that the vast majority of mortgage applicants will need a deposit of 20% before a loan can be offered. This is an onerous burden, especially in Dublin, but a return to the free-and-easy days of when a 90% or even a 100% mortgage — even more if you were a retired Government minister — were commonplace seems more than reckless for the borrower, the lender and especially the society that would almost inevitability have to make good losses for institutions “too big to fail”.