I have been approached by a number of people who are living in financial straitjackets because their mortgages were sold to vulture funds without their knowledge or consent. It is impossible for those people to get away from the vulture funds. I made representations to the major financial institutions to take on some of these mortgages for people who have never missed a single instalment, and the answer I received has invariably been "No". They do not want to know. Regardless of what propaganda is put out, that is the reality. The mortgagors are chained to the vultures. I have been approached by people paying €700 and €800 a month extra on what they were paying this time last year. In the past hour, there was a family in touch with me who are paying €850 per month over and above what they were paying last year. Many of these people are trying to survive on modest incomes. Now they have to find another €10,000 over and above what they found last year to swell the already swollen coffers of the vulture funds. There are 65,000 families affected by this. That equates to 200,000 to 250,000 people. What does the Government propose to do to help these people?

Many of those people will benefit from the mortgage interest relief which was announced in the budget because they have seen big increases in their mortgage payments as a consequence of higher interest rates. They could benefit by about €1,250 a year under that scheme. I appreciate, however, that this is only a small contribution for people facing increases of €600, €700 or €800 a month. They can switch, as the Deputy knows, but it is very hard to switch if you do not have equity in your property. They should certainly investigate that if they do. As regards other actions we could take, I am not sure what else is possible, but I will certainly make the Minister for Finance aware that Deputy O'Dea raised this.