Whether vampires exist in reality, the characters we heard on the now infamous tapes are not fictional. All of us can appreciate the disgust, although not the shock, people felt at hearing the macho diatribes between these individuals. The disgust felt by the tens of thousands of families across the State who are in mortgage distress is all the deeper. To listen to Mr. David Drumm describe how he planned to go to the Central Bank with his arms swinging to demand "the moolah" for his bankrupt bank is revealing. We know there will be no option for struggling families to refuse to pay the moolah or to pluck the figures from their posteriors.

It is all the more shocking to be confronted with the details of a new code of conduct for mortgage arrears on the same morning that we hear these revelations. The Minister has indicated this is part of a supportive process, but I challenge her on that claim. It abolishes the previous limit of three contacts per month from banks to customers in arrears. In other words, it allows opportunities for the harassment of families already under pressure. It introduces a three month notice period before a bank can move to seek a repossession order, or eight months in the case of new arrears cases. Whatever about kicking the can down the road, this appears to be a case of acting with indecent haste. The code of conduct is best understood as part of a wider, co-ordinated attack on struggling homeowners. The Government has already passed legislation to make it easier to repossess family homes and tax the family home. At the behest of the troika, it has now introduced the new code of conduct which ignores much of the advice given by organisations that work with struggling homeowners.

I ask the Minister to explain to those families with whom she has sympathised this morning the difference in treatment between the macho men of the banking world and the struggling householder.

The Deputy's party voted for the guarantee.

Deputy Emmet Stagg's party voted to extend it twice.

I find Deputy Mary Lou McDonald's comments interesting. I recall discussing at length with her predecessor as finance spokesperson in this House the reasons the Labour Party was voting against the bank guarantee and advising him to consider doing the same. I do not know why he did not or would not do so. All I can say about the impact of banking issues on the lives of families who are worried about holding onto their houses is that Deputy Mary Lou McDonald needs to think a little about the structures the Government has put in place. I agree with her that the country should never have been brought to this point, but I remind her that her party, among others, voted for the guarantee.

The Minister's party has voted to extend it twice.

It has resiled from that position ever since. The record of the House shows what happened.

The Minister thinks she is still in opposition.

We have to deal with the catastrophe visited on the country and its people. Those who voted for the bank guarantee, including Sinn Féin, handed us the responsibility, as citizens and as a country, to deal with the awful and irresponsible actions about which we hear on the tapes. Deputy Mary Lou McDonald referred to those involved as the men after the moolah. If there is responsibility to be taken, it must be taken by everybody who voted for the guarantee.

Is the Minister blaming Fine Gael now also?

The representatives of Sinn Féin are among those who have to take responsibility because they were leading lights in agreeing to the guarantee.

Fine Gael supported the guarantee also.

The Minister is taking cynicism to a whole new depth.

Can I comment on what we have set out in relation to families?

The Minister is the queen of cynicism.

Sinn Féin did not know what it was doing. It was supporting Fianna Fáil.

The Minister is the queen of spin.

Do the Deputies have any idea how they sound on radio and television? I ask them to, please, allow the Minister to respond without their smart remarks.

I would not mind if they were smart.

We have set up a process. Anyone who has ever been involved in debt resolution - I am speaking as an accountant - will appreciate that it is necessary to get the borrower and the lender to come together to reach an agreement that allows the borrower to recover and get back on his or her feet and also allows the lender to recover proportionate amounts of money that are recoverable. If one examines the detail of the Central Bank code of conduct, one will find that it refers to contact that "is proportionate and not excessive". Anyone who has ever been owed money, even at a domestic level, will know that people who owe money get so stressed that they turn away and fail to engage. We are providing for an engagement process that will allow families to reach a sustainable solution. If Sinn Féin is holding out the prospect of anything else, or suggesting there should not be an actual resolution between the borrower and the lender, it is making a false promise that cannot be delivered on, even if it does not intend to do so. We must help families to sort out their difficulties, slowly but surely. The structures are now in place to facilitate this. The Department of Social Protection provides support for 12,000 families, in terms of their mortgage interest payments, on a monthly basis. It also provides a telephone advice line that is run through the Citizens Information Board and funds the Money Advice and Budgeting Service. The Government and the Dáil recently established the Insolvency Service of Ireland. We now have the structures in place to allow families to come to sustainable solutions. That is what I want for families. I hope it is what Sinn Féin wants also.

The Minister is an accountant and that was an accountant's answer, if I ever heard one. We all know that there has to be a resolution process for families in debt.

I thank the Deputy.

That has never been contested. The Government is proposing a process that will give the banks a veto.

No.

The Government is not providing for a level playing pitch for the struggling household and the macho men, many of whom are still in place in the financial system.

Perhaps the Deputy might ask a question.

It is neither even-handed nor fair to pit the moolah boys against the struggling householder.

Did the Deputy's party appreciate that when it voted for the bank guarantee?

I ask the Minister to revisit her accountant's mindset and perhaps factor this in. She and her colleagues are always telling us how right they were on the banks.

We were.

If that is the case, why did they leave the Anglo Irish Bank boys who treated the State with such contempt in place for five years after the guarantee on salaries of €175,000 and more?

Where is Anglo Irish Bank now?

They are presiding over circumstances in which none of these moolah men has been brought to account.

May we have a question, please?

Not one of them has faced time in jail.

The Deputy should ask the man sitting beside her about that.

The Government certainly does not have a charter for harassing them. There is one law for the rich and another for the poor.

Where is Anglo Irish Bank now?

The Deputy should go to Clontarf Garda station and make a complaint.

The Minister is polishing her halo with regard to the banks.

Will the Deputy, please, put her question? She is over time.

That only makes what the Government is doing at this time all the worse. It has protected these people.

The Deputy did not hear me. Would she, please, put her question?

She does not have a question.

The Government has allowed them to stay in highly paid positions. At the same time, its response to the plight of struggling homeowners has been heartless.

I again ask the Deputy to put her question.

She should set aside the script.

According to figures released last week, the number of people in arrears has increased for the 14th quarter in a row since September 2009.

We are not here to make speeches.

She is nearly at the end of the script.

This has happened on the Government's watch.

I ask the Deputy to resume her seat and the Minister to respond to her.

Is there a question?

Excuse me, a Cheann Comhairle-----

The Deputy is now one minute over her time.

-----you gave the Minister considerable latitude.

I did not. Will the Deputy, please, resume her seat?

I would like to be afforded the same courtesy.

I also gave the Deputy latitude.

I wish to put my question.

Put the question, please.

Stop interrupting her.

Where did it all go so horribly wrong?

It went wrong on the night of the bank guarantee.

Since when does the Labour Party back the big bankers and punish families?

Will the Deputy, please, adhere to the Chair?

Is that now the way of the Labour Party and its accountant Minister?

I doubt that any accountant in Ireland knows as much about banks and banking as certain elements of Sinn Féin.

There the Minister goes again. She is just the same as the Taoiseach. They always resort to the low blow.

The knowledge any of the rest of us has pales by comparison with Sinn Féin's relationship with the banks and their moolah.

They know where the safes are.

It is unbecoming to let something that is so important to families degenerate-----

Yes.

To banks.

It is unworthy of Deputy Mary Lou McDonald.

The Minister has no consideration for families whatsoever.

It is not her normal standard to make such comments.

Of course, the Minister's comments are entirely worthy.

The Minister is on the side of the bankers.

Deputy Mary Lou McDonald asked where it had all gone wrong. Unfortunately for the country, it went wrong on the night of the bank guarantee-----

It went wrong long before then.

The Government has extended it on a number of occasions.

-----when Sinn Féin and others decided to transfer the debt to the backs of the people.

The Government has extended it.

That is why it is so tragic and sad to listen to the tapes.

Where are the tapes of the promises the Labour Party made before the election?

In the three years after the bank guarantee, the country lost 250,000 jobs. The connection between this and Deputy Mary Lou McDonald's question is that many of the families in question are now struggling to meet their mortgage payments. What have we done as a Government?

The Government has penalised the people in question.

We have set up a procedure to find a resolution between the borrower and the lender.

It voted to extend the guarantee repeatedly. The Government extended the guarantee again and again, even when it knew the full facts.

Hindsight is great.

All we get from the Minister is spin and cynicism. The Sunday Independent devotes its front page to it every weekend.