AIB mortgage hike adds insult to economic injury - O' Connell

A spokesperson for the local branch of Sinn Féin has criticised Allied Irish Banks decision to raise their interest rates on variable rate mortgages by 0.5%, just two days after the bank paid out €1 billion of taxpayers' money to an unsecured AIB bondholder. Oisin O' Connell, the Chairperson of County Wexford Sinn Féin, said AIB and the coalition government were adding insult to economic injury by pretending that these two events were not related.

Mr O' Connell said;

"AIBs decision to raise their interest rates on variable rate mortgages by 0.5% will hit hard 70,000 households with mortgages in this state. It will cause a knock-on blow to the local economy, as more disposable income is sucked out of it. Nine hundred euros a year will be loaded onto the cost of a typical two hundred and fifty thousand mortgage."

"This rise came only two days after an unsecured, unguaranteed bondholder of AIB was paid €1 billion from our taxes. Before this year is out, we will pay €20 billion to bailout the bad gambles of European casino-capitalism. That is the figure for this year alone. All of this is being borne by the Irish people."

"AIB and the Fine Gael/Labour government are adding insult to economic injury by suggesting that these two events are not linked. Tens of thousands of Irish homes are in mortgage distress because our government and central bank have decided it would be better to allow banks to dictate our economic policy at the expense of our people and our economy."

"Sinn Féin has consistently called not only for the bad gambling debts of unsecured bondholders and broken banks to be burned, but for the government to bailout Irish citizens and the Irish economy instead. It's time the government asserted its influence over essentially state-owned institutions like Allied Irish Bank, and stop them making irresponsible decisions that hit hard our households - and what's left of our economy."