Austerity Government has failed mortgage holders - Kelly

Cllr Anthony Kelly has raised his concerns that the Fine Gael and Labour coalition government are incapable of dealing with the mortgage crisis now critically effecting 10% of Irish households. The Wexford Sinn Féin rep slammed Fine Gael for failing to deliver on pre election promises made to mortgage holders and described them as being ‘one trick austerity ponies’.

“Ten percent of Irish households are now in mortgage arrears,” Cllr Kelly said. “Rather than dealing effectively with this situation and managing to decrease the number of people in mortgage arrears as they promised before the last election, the Fine Gael/Labour coalition has presided over an escalating, untackled crisis. It’s a testament to the incompetence of this government that the percentage of people in this state in mortgage arrears is four times that of the UK.”

“115,000 homes are now in mortgage distress. That translates as an unmitigated disaster. How does our government respond? They establish a government subcommittee to look into the situation. It’s simply not good enough and a reflection on how out of touch this government is with the suffering felt by ordinary families across this land.”

“This austerity government has failed every struggling mortgage holder in this state. There’s been a total lack of action in dealing with what is possibly the single biggest problem facing the Irish people. Instead what we get with the one trick austerity ponies that make up our government is the same bureaucratic nonsense we got from their Fianna Fail predecessors. It’s time the government brought forward substantive proposals backed up with significant resources to address this problem. Anything short of this will see more families fall into arrears.”