Carthy welcomes significant breakthrough on controversial Mortgage Protection Scheme

Carrickmacross Sinn Féin Councillor Matt Carthy has welcomed, as a significant breakthrough for residents, the agreement of Monaghan County Council that some home purchasers under the ‘affordable house scheme’ will now be able to revert to cheaper mortgage protection insurance.

In a long running sage Cllr. Carthy and residents of Bothar Eanna have been in a battle with Monaghan County Council after the local authority had initially permitted mortgage holders to obtain independent protection insurance but then insisted that they return to the more expensive scheme operated by the council. This week Cllr. Carthy said he had been disappointed with the attitude of the council throughout the debacle and that the next step in the campaign would be to ensure that all other mortgage holders would be permitted to seek alternative cover.

Cllr. Carthy told this week how he had been working on this issue for over a year since it was first brought to his attention by residents of Bothar Eanna on the Convent Lands. Since then, he said, “we have met with brick wall after brick wall in trying to get answers”.

The residents had written to the ombudsman as well as seeking meetings with officials in Monaghan County Council. “At every turn they were met with what can only be described as intransigence” Cllr. Carthy said.

Cllr. Carthy continued: “Since I have become involved I have moved motions at meetings of Monaghan County Council and Carrickmacross Town Council which were passed unanimously, I submitted official questions to meetings of the County Council, I spoke directly to Monaghan County Council officials and I wrote to the council’s Director of services on numerous occasions, all without receiving a satisfactory response.

“The turning point came when I spoke to Deputy Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin and he in turn submitted Parliamentary Questions to the Minister for Housing on the issue. It was part of one of the responses to these which made it clear that the council could and should allow those who had previously been permitted to opt-out of the council’s scheme to revert to their less expensive cover.

“Even armed with this PQ response I still had to threaten the council with legal proceedings before we received this breakthrough in the past week. While relieved that we have achieved this I am very disappointed in the strategy of Monaghan County Council which appeared to be a hostile one at all times”.

Cllr. Carthy commended the residents involved in continuing to pursue this matter and he thanked his colleague Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin TD for his assistance. The next step of the campaign he said, would be to highlight the failures of this entire scheme which made people on low incomes pay more than others for mortgage protection insurance.