There are several things that arise here. Senator Ross, in fact, made an analogous reference in his contribution on Second Stage. He wondered why similar legislation was not being introduced for financial institutions. The fact of the matter is that the control of financial institutions falls within the remit of another office holder. Anyway it is not normal to endeavour to deal with or regulate different branches of society in one sort of omnibus Bill. I was struck in the past few weeks in this House by some of Senator Ross's contributions. It seems to me that what he would ideally like to see is an annual single piece, the Single Irish Act, in which all legislative proposals would be contained in this one omnibus blockbuster. They would relate one to the other and the House could then debate them presumably for the year.
Perhaps it would be a way of doing business. It certainly would make life interesting and perhaps less pressurised for some Ministers. The responsibility of individual office holders is to deal with the areas within their remit. While I know and I welcome the fact that the banks have again become more interested in the question of home loan finance, they do not fall within the description of building societies, nor are they friendly societies. From that point of view, it is not appropriate for me to deal with the banks' activities in this legislation.
In relation to an application fee which the banks might charge, one would need to know the composition of the fee of what items of service it might or might not cover in connection with the application, before one would be in a position to make an adequate or fair comment on it. I think that if the application fee is merely a fee which the banks feel they can charge and derive profit from in the interests of their shareholders, that situation, like so many situations, should best be dealt with through the marketplace. If the Senator would consider the powers of the Minister under section 6 (1) (a), the prohibitions on charging redemption fees, that I hope will bring about a situation where if mortgage holders feel they are being charged punitive rates and realise there are more attractive home loan finances available in other parts of the market, they may consider rearranging their home loan facilities.
If that develops and the banks discover they are debarring themselves or restricting their opportunities to participate in that switching market through the charging of application fees, I suspect that bank application fees will evaporate rather quickly. This is the situation, of course, that I adverted to which has happened in other countries when the more institutions who became involved in offering home loan finance the less the restrictive practices which traditionally had pertained managed to survive in the conditions of the real and extended marketplace. I believe that is what will happen in this country in the next three to five years and, indeed, as I said on Second Stage, I regret that I have had to introduce section 6 as part of this Bill. I had hoped that the marketplace and the winds of change that are already making their presence felt in a very real and, from the point of view of perhaps some operators, chilling way in the marketplace would have brought about the changes which unfortunately I have now had to invite the House to see implemented through Statute on a voluntary basis by the societies.
I suspect the application fee the Senator refers to being charged by the banks will similarly be blown away on the winds of change and competition. If it is not and if it is found to be an unfair and unnecessary charge and if the banks continue, as I hope they do, to express their increasing interest in the home loan market, then it would, of course, be appropriate for my colleague, the Minister for Finance, to deal with that matter either by encouraging the banks to adopt voluntarily the code of practice or if he finds, as I did in relation to the societies, that they are not prepared to adopt that code of practice, unfortunately perhaps some piece of legislation similar to section 6 might be felt necessary. I would not like that to be taken as an indication that I feel it to be necessary.
I have heard previously, but only on a small number of occasions, the complaint made by the Senator in relation to the banks charging application fees. I have no knowledge of and I would need to have knowledge of what the application fee actually covers, what services being provided by the bank in connection with the applications are to be covered by the fee before it would be appropriate for me to pass judgment, as it were.
