Mattie McGrath Slams Banks and Lack of Ministerial Scrutiny

NThat Sainz-me, I too minister have no issue with you, your good self, but I think it's an absolute disgrace that the minister- senior minister is not here. That's all to do with yourself, we had again this day a week. I was chair in the chair unfortunately and I had to adjourn the house because the minister had no briefing and he really wasn't there to answer, and I have to go over that corner there and talk with the officials. again about huge borrowings that we're going to get into and huge schemes and you know to just not good enough and we're meant to have pre-list scrutiny we're meant to have detailed discussions at committees stage and we're meant to have you know the legislation deliberated on here we have no police we've waived that we have waived we have no committee set up and from what reports i've heard from a federal reform committee um in the last half hour you know it's going to be bulldozing all the way from this new government total and absolute bulldozing and expect us to pass this i stand here as a person who voted for the for the bank guarantee i reckon saying this like a bad record it's a bad taste of my mouth certainly and the biggest mistake i've ever made in my life taking life and i acknowledge that and here we are with issues like this again and you know and just putting in turn of him and no scrutiny and no proper committee debate and no and no time really for amendments or anything else and i very much am concerned when you say that look we must get it through and the time is on the side but um and we'll have the statutory instruments that's what i worry so what comes into the statutory instruments so we have no really um debate or discourse about or no input into and also as i said minister um you said the banks the heads of the banks uh i would give positive indications from the heads of the banks the banks don't know what positive is they just don't do positive they do for themselves and they're uh when the people are in penury trying to pay back the bailout for the in for the way they were left carrying on and there still hasn't been any legislation brought forward to to to to deal with them since i said this last night i've huge concerns about uh the the alice bank operation and then the three pillar banks uh that you're talking about having the cars and this does i mean the closet and there may be different um there may be different options or streets of options and maybe different rates their main reason is to um make profit and a healthy profit and they have no interest in the struggling people we saw this solace to give them and it was meant to be moratorium in the last four or five months with the pandemic there was meant to be no evictions i can tell you on commercial area there's nothing about evictions and and and appeals in the courts and and and the whole life going on as if it never as if we had no pandemic so that's what's going on they tell you one thing you listen to them because you like the european situation and instead of being the whipping bias here and tell them what to do but no there's no legislation so they can give us two fingers all the banks on both hands because we don't have legislation to control them and i'm very very worried about how they will handle this money how they will deal with people who are there if they got into some you know um distressed small smes especially if they're you know um maybe one seven five or maybe two or maybe three and if you know i i've seen it already with people that were on the pandemic payment employees uh who um who um wanted had loan approval for mortgages for houses and the banks now because one of the employees was on a pandemic payment have pulled the market they want any reason not to lend and support the people any reason any reason big little or small and they're looking for those reasons it might be the most minute area issue and they want those reasons to refuse to to support and we had the spirit of they're not recording the care that we supported you know but the banks don't do that they've got away with so much free reign to do what they did to the country and the banking crisis and didn't be bailed out which my grandchildren would be paying it back and and still they have why would they learn the lesson because they walked away scot-free and there's conflicting messages from the tarnisher and the teacher about the meetings that you had with them and who and then you they wheel out their former politician no no pr spokesman no issue with him but i'm just saying it's a spin they put on all this and it's the grief and they put people through their business out there now and they're just on their last legs and some of them are pensioners they're over 66 they're on a uh the old days pension and they're self-implied for the republicans shopkeepers bus owners bus drivers undertakers you name them candlestick maker they can't get a bob and the banks won't give money leniency to kind of stay afro they can't feed themselves quite frankly they'll be forced to go to the what the social welfare to get um um some assistance they can't literally live they can't live in the wind i mean some horrific stories and and and um the banks no point going to the bank with a bail booked because you get a doris dunta a closed door closed book they won't even meet you now they've removed themselves from most small towns and uh where they were under each in the regions they've they have um they have pay machines and pay whatever they don't meet the bank manager anymore one time the bank manager knew their customers and knew their capabilities and had a good relationship and there was a trust two-way trust but now it's total screw the customer for whatever you can get off of them take in whatever money we can make it much profit so we need to see the tracker markers do we need any more do we need any more evidence or what happened with the tracker modes and it's now a new case again that's all recently coming i know we are on the member number three and i'm sorry that i was caught up for a meeting but i'm just saying i spoke on it last night i have huge concerns about as i said about about what's what's going on here and the way we're passing this legislation without proper scrutiny and it'll come back to bite us but above all biting us is one thing but it'll bite the people that we represent and the other families open down the country that need support and they don't want to end for nothing all they want is fair play and get an interest rate that's at this way these at times you should get the money for low interest and the bank should be if there were any way uh loyal and supportive or are nationalistic or they would be giving out the money and support them but no they're raising their their resistance is to make profit massive profits and and and then they have all the friends in the receiver companies and the and and the whole lot and the legal ferrums the whole lot it's a big murky business and to help with the little people go to market thank you i'm trying to deal with most of the issues are concerned there although i think i won't stay into the mortgage it's just yeah i might leave that to the minister of finance just to work in reverse and comments on this deputy you did comment last night and i did try to address some of your concerns i think you had to leave last night as well i didn't get a chance to do the full wrap up today when i had the chance but the concerns you have with legislation this legislation is amending existing legislation which is there since 2012 and was also amended 2016 so it's not new legislation popped out and over we're adding in new new schemes into it under the covert 19 emergency situation under the eu framework which makes it easier and better for and and will lead on to lower interest rates will lead on to more finance being available to to all sides of the companies but more importantly from a man from tipperary who's very concerned with producers it adds in the opportunity for producers and for farmers and for fisheries as well and that's the key to me that it threatens the legislation we can reach more people with this it will lead on to cheaper rates and that's something we can monitor very very clearly i accept fully that i that i can't sit out here and put you that put in front of you the table of the interest rates i accept that so i'm not asking i'm not trying to you know so i accept your your concerns around what i'm saying to you is in our discussions with them and with the times of leading those discussions that's what their focus is about getting a good quality product across a range of different offerings out to people who need this money so i don't have the concerns the legislation was talked about since may and produced back then we had to form it all to bring it through here i attacked the houses for your cooperation and trying to bring it through quite quickly here i accept that i acknowledge that i acknowledge people waive the right to have committed scrutiny because everyone recognized the importance of reaching smes with finance but you know that does mean that we have to also move fast in here sometimes and i think the legislation is not dramatic it's not changing the legal end of this whole lot but it's making it a much much better scheme and again it's a scheme that we own the state gives us guarantee and we only give the guarantee to the banks and when it's important out to each of the individual banks if we agree with what they're going to do and what we want them to do so you know and if a a particular bank doesn't decide to use the scheme in the right way and then they won't be using the scheme that's fair enough and the customers will go someplace else because although you might dislike banks i'm sure you would have a big complaint if a bank announced we're moving out of a particular town in temporary because their jobs and so on will be gone so we're using the existing bank network to distribute to distribute so i want to make the point to distribute the finance out to people who need it if we set up our own network it could slow the whole process down it could be very cumbersome in costs and so on so the credit guarantee which works all across europe is done this way and we guarantee the financial products and it puts the banks in a stronger position to give people a better deal on their loans and that's what we're trying to achieve here i think we all want the same thing here access to finance access to it in the simpler terms and in the lower cost money as well that's what we're trying to achieve here we believe that will happen because this legislation also removes their portfolio cap which was a major impediment rightly identified by many in this house to achieve in those lower interest rates as well so i think we're in a much stronger position if we pass the legislation to reach out there with a better financial product when i say a mix of products there's numerous banks and lending institutions that will use this so that's why there'll be a range of products and i hope we will see competition with them for different prices at different interest rates but there's also going to be different types of loans like overdrafts and term loans and longer term loans in three years and five years six years that's what i say about different products and but we will we will track them all and we will work with the banks now in the weeks ahead when this is passed to have these up and running hopefully by september or or if all going well or be forward if we can and with lower cost funding as well so that's what i'm trying to trying to deal with at that point legislation is not where you would write in the interest rate or the or the terms and conditions of loans because that's something you do with the agreement process the legal documents that will be signed between strategic banking cooperation in ireland and the lending institutions they want to obey the scheme and again it's not just the pillar banks because people might have missed that in the conversation last night they're the ones that predominantly use it and are in this in the discussion so far and the first 30 of the funding will be allocated uh if they want to draw it to those the second 70 will be on an open call to credit unions to post offices to anybody who wants to bail out the scheme so just bear that in mind it's all the financial institutions they want to try to loan money out as well to the piece that was raised by deputy mcgrath relation to evictions and commercials just to be clear i understand people from the legislation went through the house here towards the end of march if i remember correctly uh in relation to a ban on evictions uh that was solely in relation to domestic and to residential houses i took legislation through on behalf of my senior minister at the time as well and on that day and it was in case i think you're concerned that that we announced there was no evictions and yet businesses are still under pressure so they were not linked to commercial premises it was residential as well just in case there was any doubt that legislation and there is commitments because i do accept and you're right to say there's a big issue around there we say rents that businesses have to pay and the the conversation with their landlords and their lending institutes around how they can pay that fixed cost and there is an issue brewing there no doubt about that it comes up in all our discussions with it with the smb groups as well that that's something that we're trying to address it is in the program for government to bring forward a criteria to do that as well other measures have been looked at and again there is a july stimulus plan that will be announced this week again with more supports so we are very much aware that you're right to raise it but i want to clear up the issue around evictions that it's not possible under that legislation to deal with commercial evictions and that wasn't the intention behind it either but we do are aware there's an issue different countries have taken different approaches how to address that and that likewise our department other departments will come together to work with the sector in that area to try to see how we can how we can help them get through that as well but again going back to the scheme and the interest rates and making it available i want to stress this is one offering in the in the toolkit there are the restart grants there are waivers of rates and other costs as well so it's amazing members not just to look at this as if it's the only solution it's not acceptable it's not meant to be but we absolutely believe that this scheme will facilitate lending at lower interest rates it has to under the under the framework of the eu that's what it's about everyone knows and all our meetings that's what this is about and it has proven to work in many other countries we all agree that the existing scheme we have in this country doesn't provide the solutions we now need with covet and that's why we are addressing the scheme here changing the criteria around it within the scope of the eu framework and i know deputy o'reilly would like to put the internet into legislation again it's not the place we can put it but i can assure you that you will have i know you want briefings on the also how we get on the banks i can i can arrange out which as well but those discussions will continue now in the weeks if we get this through the houses today and tomorrow on the channel and then it is down for hopefully for the president to try to move it fastly as well and then we can finish our discussion negotiations with the banks around the details of the scheme there'll be statutory instruments to be signed and i think you will be happy what comes what comes out of that and what often will be made there but again i and i will first admit i said it three times a day already i know you can't see that and so i'm just asking to let the legislation go through and that we can then go to get on to finish this piece of work and get the money out to businesses who need it