The programme for Government contains a commitment to the reform of banking and financial services, particularly in regard to the repossession of houses. Many people have had their loans bought up by various institutions - these vulture funds, as they are described.

The issue is that many of these people find their loans are sold in groups of perhaps 40 or 50. I have come across numerous people who have tried their very best to deal with the banks to be able to buy their own loans back. That is all they want to do. These are functioning loans, there is no problem with them and the borrowers have always met their repayments. However, they find they are sold off to some company from China, Hong Kong or wherever. The borrowers want to take control again so that their loans do not end up with these vulture funds. Everyone in this House is agreed that this is an absurd situation. Will the Government change the relevant legislation to ensure that before a person's loan is sold off, his or her bank must give him or her sufficient notice and an adequate opportunity to negotiate with the bank to buy his or her loan back, even if at slightly less of a discount than that at which a vulture fund would buy it?

I am not too sure we would interfere at that level. Where loans are acquired in bulk in such circumstances, the purchasers of have undertaken to adhere to the code of conduct set out by the Central Bank in respect of each of the tenants involved. In other such cases in the recent past, the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government has intervened to protect tenants.