I refer to the sale of the Irish Nationwide Building Society, INBS, loan book, which has been raised in the House on a number of occasions. I attended yesterday's meeting of the Joint Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform expecting to be reassured by the special liquidator and Department of Finance officials that those with INBS loans would be protected when the loan book is sold. All the bidders will not be subject to regulation by the Central Bank. I was shocked to discover that the commitment given that the code of conduct on mortgage arrears would be adhered to by prospective bidders would not form a legal condition of the contract for sale, which means it will not be binding. That is an unacceptable flaw. The second flaw is that even if that condition had been incorporated into the contract, there is nothing to protect mortgage holders from a further sale of the loan book, either in its entirely or as individual loans.

Does the Senator have a question for the Leader?

I have, but this is an important issue. Third, interest rates will be imposed by the lender. That is grand when we are dealing with Bank of Ireland, AIB and so on, but these mortgage holders will be dealing with organisations that are based outside the country and there will be no restriction on the interest rate they charge unless it is described as usury, and we all know what that means - more than 50% and up to 200% in some instances. This is a serious issue. The alternative is that the loan book should move to NAMA, and that is what should happen. There is no protection for INBS mortgage holders in what is proposed. Only 1% of them are on tracker mortgages, which means 99% of them have no protection.