EU mortgage suggestion: Good idea but...

The suggestion from Fianna Fáil’s Billy Kelleher, that those trying to buy a home be allowed to borrow money anywhere in the EU, is an entirely rational response to the costly consequences of the monopoly in the Irish mortgage market. After all, if a vulture fund wants to borrow money to buy property in Ireland ,it is not obliged to do business with Irish lenders, so why are individuals?

Mr Kelleher described how a €250,000 mortgage, spread over 30 years and based on the average eurozone rate, would cost €72,843 in credit fees but in Ireland, that figure would be €140,698 — a staggering €67,855 rip-off, or €2,261 a year.