Creighton should advocate for those in mortgage arrears

As the banking inquiry winds its weary way on interrogating those it deems to be responsible for the financial chaos that developed during the dying days of the last Fianna Fail Government, it is managing to elicit from those concerned how lax the controls were on lending large sums of money to individuals whether it was for mortgages or other ventures.

The applicant for the loan made his application more in hope than in certainty, many applicants for loans were ordinary people, not highly educated and were relying on the honesty, responsibility and intelligence of the lender sitting opposite them for guidance.

The prospective borrower would and should expect to be scrutinised thoroughly. If the lender is responsible and if his scrutiny reveals that the applicant is seeking to borrow way beyond his capacity to repay in the long term, he should have warned the applicant and refused the granting of the loan. But this didn’t happen. Bank headquaraters had sizeable loan targets that they wanted met.