Before I begin, I want to mention the appalling atrocity in which 17 young people were shot dead and 50 more injured in the Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school in Maryland in Florida. It is critical the global community does not become complacent about such heedless, needless and gun-fuelled violence. Our thoughts and prayers are with the families. A very basic right is that one's children should go to school and come home safely. We send our solidarity to the people of the area and the people of the USA as they grapple with yet another major school tragedy.

This morning, thousands of homeowners across the country are reading in the Irish Independent that their home loans are being put up for sale without their agreement. Permanent TSB is beginning to market a portfolio of home loans worth nearly €3 billion to a range of international investors, including those we know as vulture funds. It is estimated this could represent up to 20,000 loans. That is 20,000 families who are facing a very uncertain future this morning. I want to put that 20,000 figure into context. In the third quarter of 2017, there were just over 11,000 family home loans held by unregulated vulture funds. This one sale could nearly triple that figure in one go. The loans will be sold at less than their actual value to these vultures but the borrowers, these families, will still have to pay every cent of the loan plus interest. Many of the potential bidders for this portfolio are already in business in Ireland and it has not been a good story. They are impossible to engage with. They do not have branches; they have call centres. They rely on anonymous call centres, which may not even be based in the State, to deal with customers. They are aggressive in dealing with borrowers and their families. They are aggressive to the point of causing considerable mental and physical stress to the people involved. They get away with it. They get away with that aggression because there is no regulation. They are accountable to nobody. The finance committee has sought in recent weeks to try to get these people to come into the committee to engage with it but virtually all of them have turned down the request of an Oireachtas committee to account for their actions. Yet, we propose to hand another 20,000 families into their clutches. Permanent TSB is only the first; other banks will follow suit. Loans involving more family homes, family farms and family businesses will be sold to the highest bidder with no regard for the families and borrowers involved.

The Government owns 75% of Permanent TSB. It is the main shareholder so it pays the piper. When was the Government made aware by Permanent TSB of its decision to put this loan portfolio up for sale in this specific manner? Did the Government at any time signal any concerns to Permanent TSB about family homes and the treatment of families in this process? What protections is the Government seeking for those families? The Minister, Deputy Donohoe's spokesperson said this morning that some banks, including Permanent TSB, were considering the sale of portfolios. What other banks, in addition to Permanent TSB, was she, and therefore the Minister, referring to?

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. It is important to say to the House that we want to complete the repair of the banking system and ensure banks are there to support the wider public interest, which is the whole purpose of a functioning banking system within an economy, as set out in the programme for Government. Dealing with non-performing loans is one of the key priorities of the European regulator, the Single Supervisory Mechanism, SSM. While great progress has been made in the Irish banks, the SSM has made it clear that further reductions need to be made. At 28%, as of last June, Permanent TSB's non-performing loan ratio was one of the highest in the eurozone. Given the volume of borrowers who have not engaged with the bank in recent years and the number of cases where treatments were not possible or have failed, the bank has said that achieving an acceptable non-performing loan ratio will not be possible without some form of loan sales. Under the terms of the relationship framework with the bank, loan sales do not require the Minister for Finance's consent. However, the bank will be required to consult with the Minister and will do so in due course. In any loan sale, it is important to highlight that the contractual terms of borrowers, or indeed tenants, remain in place after the loan sale while the Central Bank code of conduct for mortgage arrears still applies. In other words, mortgage holders have the same rights regardless of who owns the loan book. While loan sales are regrettable, the Minister for Finance is conscious of the need for the bank to continue on a path of recovery.

The Government was briefed on this by the Minister for Finance on Tuesday at its last meeting. On the Deputy's question about other banks, Ulster Bank had a loan sale last year or 18 months ago. Of course people are concerned about who will be managing their loans and who they will be talking to or negotiating with in terms of debt. We are very conscious of that. We are also conscious of the rules that apply and there is a significant onus on the Central Bank to make sure that when loans are sold, the contractual rights of those who are linked to those loans continue to apply and we will do that.

The vulture funds are not regulated by the Central Bank. They are untouchable by the Central Bank. The Tánaiste knows it as does every Deputy here. We have been dealing with these and they have no regard for the Central Bank, the Oireachtas or the law. They are pursuing borrowers with no intent. We deal with them all here. On the notion that in due course the Government will engage with Permanent TSB, it said this morning that the loans of 20,000 families are up for grabs.

Now is the time to engage with it, not in due course, to say it has to protect these families. These are not non-entities, they are not systems. They are people living in family homes the length and breadth of this island. Some may have had difficulties with their loans but they have tried to engage and that engagement will count for nothing when it goes on to one of these funds. That has been our experience in dealing with these funds.

The Tánaiste should try to put the interests of families at the front of this. The Government is obsessed with fixing the system, but it should think about families who today face such an uncertain future and it should stand up for the rights of those whose family homes are under threat as we speak.

It is difficult to take this lecture on thinking about families and loan books from Fianna Fáil given what it-----

For God's sake.

Fine Gael has been nine years in government. It should move on.

-----was responsible for in the banking sector.

The Tánaiste has some cheek.

The Government should deal with the banks.

What is the Government doing?

Our job as a Government is to try to fix what Fianna Fáil broke.

The Government should put its hands up.

The tens, if not hundreds of thousands of families that have suffered as a result of that banking collapse-----

What is the Government doing about it?

The Government is selling them down the Swanee.

-----which was directly linked to poor banking regulatory and Government policy.

By selling them to vulture funds.

That is what we have spent the past six and a half years-----

The Government lobbied for more all the time.

We will continue to try to fix that in a way that does prioritise families, tries to protect people in their homes and gives them State-funded supports in terms of the advice they need to get through a difficult debt and finance management journey, which many families are on.

The Government is in bed with the banks.

We also need to ensure that the Central Bank has the power to ensure that, regardless of who owns loan books, how they are managed in respect of keeping people in their homes and protecting the public interest is at the forefront of what we are doing.