Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore told the Dáil the Government is working on measures to help people in mortgage difficulties and these will be published as soon as possible.
“We are very concerned about the difficulties in which mortgage holders find themselves when these matters are brought before the courts,” Mr Gilmore said.
He said that while the Personal Insolvency Bill was planned for next year, some interim measures are planned for the Civil Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill. This is in the course of being drafted with a view to publication as soon as possible this year, he said.
Mr Gilmore said account is being taken of the recommendations of the Law Reform Commission and its recent report on personal debt management and debt enforcement.
Meanwhile, Minister for Enterprise Richard Bruton said the Government was taking a fresh look at banking policy and bankruptcy laws and that he felt there was momentum for change.
However, he said no government could announce debt forgiveness on a wide scale and banks and their customers ultimately had to take decisions and work through any difficulties themselves.
“There is a genuine issue about moral hazard. You can’t be writing off one person’s debt and expecting another person to pay,” Mr Bruton said.
The Master of the High Court today reiterated his calls for the introduction of debt forgiveness for people being pursued by banks, saying Ireland can’t afford any delays.
Edmund Honohan said this morning Ireland "can't wait" 18 months for new laws to be introduced and the banks should immediately "translate" debt that has been written down into debt forgiveness.
The Irish Banking Federation earlier accused Mr Honohan of using inflammatory language when he suggested that people were being driven to suicide by banks and creditors pursuing debts to the bitter end.
Asked on RTÉ's Morning Ireland today whether his language had been "inflammatory", Mr Honohan said he did not accept this. He said there were probably people who had been suicidal yesterday, who were today "quite cheery because somebody has mentioned this".
He said he occasionally had to deal with widows where a person had taken their own life because of debts. There were also people coming before him who were being sued for a debt that had already been written off by the banks.
"All we need to do here is to cut through the Gordian Knot. There are a number of very practical suggestions - back of the envelope stuff, that could be legislated within a month."
But federation chief executive Pat Farrell said he rejected the comments on suicide. “I reject the fact that those assertions are being made because at the end of the day I have to look at it from the perspective of my members," he said.
Mr Farrell said Mr Honohan had claimed two years ago that the State was facing an avalanche of repossessions but this had not transpired.
“That event has not happened and the reason it has not happened is because my members, the mainstream banks, have engaged in extraordinary measures and forbearance across mortgage debt and personal debt to ensure that every effort is made to enable people manage their debts," he said.
Mr Honohan defended his comments, saying that once he had warned about a pending "avalanche" of repossessions, action had been taken and codes in relation to repossessions had been produced.
Mr Farrell said the number of repossession had been very small and that a good portion of them were voluntary. He said people would find banks easy to deal with if approached early when they felt they were getting into difficulty with loan or mortgage payments.
Yesterday, Mr Honohan said Irish laws should be updated to protect people unable to pay their debts and to introduce a level of “debt forgiveness”. There was no reason why the 1850 Judgment Mortgage Act should not be changed to “put a brake” on the spiralling number of judgments, he said. This would be a way of introducing debt forgiveness.
The Master, who deals with a range of legal matters including applications to register and enforce judgments, made the remarks yesterday when dealing with several such cases. He noted that no laws had been introduced to implement recommendations by the Law Reform Commission in a 2004 report relating to debt relief, which included that a family home should not be sold on foot of a judgment mortgage unless such order was approved by a court.