It is a stupid argument.

I did not call you stupid; I called the argument stupid.

I thank all those who contributed on the motion. It is an important debate because so many people are struggling as a result of high interest rates. For some borrowers, they have increased on five occasions since June of last year. I described some of the arguments put forward by the Government as stupid arguments. I did so because the Government speakers have tried to suggest that every mortgage holder in the State will get €1,500. However, the motion is clear, as the Minister of State would know unless she has no…

-----or to purport not to understand the proposal that is being put forward, despite my earlier contribution, in which I addressed increased interest rates. It is about trying to minimise, downplay and brush off instead of recognising there are probably people listening to this debate who are hanging on and hoping against hope that the Government will see sense in the context of introducing this proposal. The Minister said the proposal would push up house prices - this from a Minister who believes the help-to-buy s…

Diúltaíodh suas le 12,000 saoránach den Stát seo, go leor acu faoi mhíchumas trom, ó thaobh an liúntais a bhí i dteideal dóibh mar gheall ar an míchumas a bhí orthu. Diúltaíodh é seo dóibh mar thoradh ar straitéis a bhí fuar, straitéis chalma, straitéis gan chroí, a forbraíodh i gcroílár an Rialtais - Rialtas ina raibh Tánaiste féin mar pháirt agus mar bhall sinsearach. Up to 12,000 citizens of this State, many of them with profound disabilities, were denied their entitlement to a modest allowance paid to them in r…

There was no apology or no admission that the Tánaiste was wrong. Yesterday the Taoiseach stood where the Tánaiste is and said the State did not have a leg to stand on. He said that because we have the memos. In 2009, the Tánaiste was given legal advice as a member of the Cabinet that said the State would be extremely unlikely to be able to defend the case. We have other memos that state the regulations were without legal foundation. They were unlawful. Let us cut to the chase. These individuals were unlawfully den…

You were informed. You got it.

How many of them are-----

When you are told it is unlawful-----

The legal advice is it was unlawful.

We want to know why the Government denied them.

It was told they were unlawful.

We know where Government allocated the resources in the 2000s. It gave them to the banks.

The Government put €30 billion into Anglo in the same period.

It was unlawful. What the Government did was unlawful.

The Tánaiste will not even apologise and accept what the Government did was unlawful.

They had legal entitlements.

It is shameful. They had legal entitlements.

Today, the European Central Bank is going to raise its interest rate again by another half a percentage point. This means there has been a 3% increase since June 2022, and it will have an immediate impact on those with tracker mortgages. Approximately 200,000 households are in this position. There are also tens of thousands of borrowers with other mortgages who have had their mortgages sold off to vulture funds. Many of these are now facing interest rates of 7.5%, and this will increase again in March to about 8%. …

So Deputy McDonald does not care.