Since June, the ECB has increased its interest rates by 2.5%. The Governor of the Central Bank came before the Committee on Finance yesterday and made clear to me and others that he expects rates to increase by another 1% by March. The process will begin next week. That rate hike will immediately affect 300,000 people who are on tracker mortgages. It will mean having to pay thousands of euro more in interest this year.

It also affects more than 100,000 families who have had their mortgages sold to vulture funds. There was a commitment from the Government that they would not be any worse off but they are far worse off. Many of these individuals are already paying a 7% interest rate in the light of recent hikes. By March, they will be paying 8%. The Minister must understand the issue. We have seen the detail. For some of the affected families, it will mean an increase of €5,000 in interest payments compared with the amount they were paying in June last year. That will be a breaking point for those families. What can the Government do? Is it not now time for the Government to reintroduce tailored, targeted and time-bound mortgage interest relief to relieve some of the pressures on these families?

A whole range of reliefs are available. There are reliefs available for the rental sector, which the Deputy would acknowledge is an area in need of real support. Returning to a point I made earlier to Deputy Tóibín, the Central Bank has the key regulatory role. It does not set the interest rates on commercial operators, but when it comes to the commercial decisions, it does have a role about how to protect the most vulnerable customers and how to deal with those facing particular difficulty. We have learned over the years that the relationship between the mortgage holder and the relevant company is critical. In that respect, the Central Bank has a key role to play.

Mortgage interest relief is a matter for the budget. There were calls for a budget every month during the crisis last year. I do not think that was the right approach. The right approach for us is to engage in the budgetary process, which, as the Deputy knows, runs from April to October. It is not as if the budget is done in one day. There is an initial statement for the European Commission and the summer economic statement. Decisions about mortgage and tax supports-----

Those bills are landing now.

-----are best made as part of the budgetary process.

People cannot wait until October.