I read the story in today's newspaper about the couple aged 82 and 85 years. From its different chapters throughout the country I am well aware of the work of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, which does an enormously important job in difficult circumstances. It is true that in these straitened economic times more people have turned to the society; the figures do not lie. However, Deputy Doherty will realise that 40% of our spending is in the area of social protection, the old age pension is €230 per week and the free electricity and fuel allocations are an important contributory factor to the well-being of our senior citizens. There is a great deal of advice available from other agencies such as MABS, where people can discover how they can better budget their resources.
The Deputy also referred to the mortgage situation. We are acutely aware of this; it is the reason it was necessary for the Minister for Finance to make changes in the restructuring of banks and engage with them in a fashion that requires them to get down to business and deal with mortgage arrears, distressed mortgages and the various other schemes. It is clear the Government has set out its own stall in this regard. We do not want to see anybody losing his or her house unless it is absolutely necessary. Comprehensive advice must be provided to people and assistance given to those in mortgage difficulties. I am not satisfied that the banks have moved rapidly enough to deal with this. I am not happy that there was a complete hiatus in having trained personnel to deal with families in mortgage distress, but am happy to note that the banks have now responded and trained people to engage in this area. We have extended the remit of the Cabinet committee dealing with mortgages to deal with banking measures. All of these measures are what the Government can do, working with the banks to ensure they deal conclusively with mortgage distress where applicable.
It is very stressful for families who find that at the end of the week there is very little or nothing left because they cannot restructure their mortgages and meet their requirements. I refer also to the introduction of new measures to deal with debt beyond formal judicial bankruptcy; the insolvency agency will take this up in the coming months. There is the rebalancing of the personal insolvency legislation measures, which will enable the striking of a fairer deal between debtor and creditor, as the Deputy will be aware. There is the introduction of measures to assist families in staying in their homes if at all possible, thereby challenging the banks to live up to their responsibilities in this crisis and to offer a much more expeditious rolling out of their own forbearance programmes.
There are no quick fixes and there is no one-size-fits-all measure that will help in every individual case, but Government is engaging in a proactive and constructive way with the banks to ensure that they sit down and deal with clients who have mortgage distress problems. I am glad to note that the number of cases being concluded is clearly rising, but do not wish to see a situation whereby people are all put on interest-only payments. There needs to be much greater involvement, and the banks were recapitalised to deal with that situation in the first instance.
As the Deputy is aware, as the Government continues to make decisions in the interests of improving the structure of our public finances, the country will become more attractive for continued inward investment.
The Government is particularly focused on small and medium-sized enterprises to create job opportunities. As the Deputy will be aware, we continue to negotiate with the European Central Bank, the Council of Europe and ECOFIN in respect of the decision made on 29 June last year in order that we might change the overall capacity of our economy to grow and prosper and allow people to deal with these problems in a far more realistic fashion.
