Huge differences in mortgage rates, and the “lack of fairness for bank customers” on variable rates, is placing “financial and emotional stress” on families across east Galway.
This is the view of Fine Gael Galway East TD Paul Connaughton, who also warned that, while many people caught in the variable mortgage rate trap are not yet in arrears, should they current situation persist, the could fall into arrears in coming months.
Speaking during a recent private members debate in the Dáil, Dep Connaughton said that now the banks are returning to profitability, that profitability must not be made “on the backs of people who made a decision to go with a variable rate over a tracker mortgage”.
The TD called on the banks to instead “reward the people who bailed them out” and for the Government to take immediate action. He said recent Government announcements that this issue would be tackled “is cold comfort for someone who is paying a high variable rate at the moment and who simply cannot afford to keep doing so”.
