Bank of Ireland interest rate hike will push mortgage holders over the edge – Sinn Fein

Dublin South West representative Seán Crowe TD responding to news that Bank of Ireland has hiked its interest rate by half a percentage point said the move is guaranteed to push some mortgage owners over the edge, potentially taking people who are just meeting their mortgages into the volatile mortgage distress category.

Crowe said that the Government’s inability to lay it out to banks in black and white, their huge debt to Irish people is one their biggest failure to date.

Deputy Seán Crowe said:

“Early this morning, people began to receive letters from Bank of Ireland, with no prior warning, telling them their rate had increased by half a percentage point. For a €200,000 mortgage this equates to roughly €50 per month. That’s an additional €600 per year for cash strapped  people to find.

“People are struggling out there. They are struggling because politicians, banks and property speculators sold this state down the river and left ordinary people to pick up the tab. We have thousands of people in mortgage distress and the  size of this increase  will push some more people over the financial edge. If the banks stratgey is to push more people to the point where they can’t pay any of their mortgage, then they are going the right way about it.

“This Government has sat on its hands throughout this mortgage crisis, as the Moody’s report last week pointed out. Their reactions have been passive, ineffectual and hardly proportionate to the size of this growing crisis.

“When the banks were in crisis, this Government and Fianna Fáil found the €64 billion in cash and  strampedeeded  to  be first to bail them out. When citizens are in crisis, the Government holds up its hands and says it can do nothing.

“The ECB is lending at .75% and yet Bank of Ireland told customers today that the cost of lending had gone up. We need the Government to intervene immediately with the banks on their interest hikes.”