Transcript
The Home Show with Sinéad Ryan, Newstalk, 19 September 2026
0:00 Sinéad Ryan: Now, it's almost 20 years since the peak of the Celtic Tiger and the economic crash which followed. Now that can seem, that's hard to believe, isn't it? But for many people, the repercussions of house repossessions, mortgages in arrears and negative equity is a today story and they're still living with the aftermath.
0:17 Now, one of the solutions which presented itself at the time was the Mortgage to Rent scheme. And for those still in negative equity, perhaps it's time, I don't know, pull the plug, set them free. Well, here to discuss what it was and what it is in a bit more detail is Stephen Curtis, CEO of Irish Homes. Stephen, welcome to The Home Show.
0:39 Stephen Curtis: Hi Sinéad, how are you?
0:40 Sinéad Ryan: Good, thank you. Now, for those who don't remember or who have blanked it out, and you can't blame them, what was the Mortgage to Rent scheme?
0:51 Stephen Curtis: So the Mortgage to Rent scheme is a scheme that was introduced by the Keane Report of the government going back as far as 2012, which is a long time ago. And what it did is it allowed people that were in unsustainable mortgage debt, so mortgage debt that they were never going to be able to either repay or restructure, to transfer from owning their house into a tenant of their Local Authority. So somebody like Irish Homes comes in, we buy the house, we refurbish the house, and the person that's living there stays as a tenant of the Local Authority for the long term.
1:24 And the idea behind the scheme, the genesis of it, was that it allowed someone who's just not going to be able to restructure their loans, is facing repossession and is facing a loss of ownership of the house, that they still lose ownership of the house, but they get to stay living in the house, and there's no dislocation to their lives, their kids, their community, or any of that kind of stuff.
1:46 And I suppose it has been around since 2012, and it got a restructure around 2018. What we've found, and we've been operating it again since 2024, is that there is still a large number of people that are in really, really difficult mortgage arrears that they're just not going to be able to resolve.
2:08 Sinéad Ryan: OK, so the people who benefited from this were in, these are pretty much basket cases, right? Not the mortgage, not the people. These are people who you couldn't do one of the other restructuring arrangements, which is kick the loan out a little bit longer, take a reduced repayment for a little while until they got back on their feet.
2:29 Stephen Curtis: Correct. Yeah. So things like the mortgage arrears restructuring process, things like the insolvency process, they just weren't going to work, because unfortunately these people just don't have any income.
2:40 And a lot of the time when we talk to people, two things have normally happened. Either there's been a relationship breakdown and they went from being, say, a two income household to maybe a one income household, or maybe only a part time income household, and they just don't have the income. Or ill health has happened and they've got some health difficulty and they haven't been able to work.
3:00 Sinéad Ryan: It kind of goes against the Irish psyche, too, because we are a nation of homeowners or aspiring homeowners, unlike other European countries. And there's something, I think, maybe a sense of failure, a sense of embarrassment at losing that home, losing that home ownership. And maybe Mortgage to Rent gave you the best of both worlds. It was like the least worst option, because, first of all, the neighbours didn't know.
3:30 Stephen Curtis: True.
3:30 Sinéad Ryan: And was that a big feature for the clients you came across? My kids are still in school. Nobody knows except us that this happened.
3:39 Stephen Curtis: One of the biggest things actually that we find, when we talk to people that are looking to enter the scheme or that are looking at just what are their options, because they're in this difficult situation. When we talk about Mortgage to Rent, the biggest thing that people want to know is, first of all, how much rent am I going to have to pay and how does all that work? But the next thing is, well, who am I going to have to tell about all this?
4:02 And the thing about who am I going to have to tell about all this is, well, nobody except yourself. You obviously have to go through a process and there's people involved in that. But there's no for sale boards going up on the house. If the house is repossessed, obviously you'd be leaving the house, and people would know about that.
4:20 And we often find, and it happens less so because there's fewer people with young children involved, that people don't want letters being sent out to the house. They prefer them being sent to maybe a third party adviser, because they don't want anyone to pick up the letters and find out, actually, you're going through this process.
4:37 Sinéad Ryan: Do we know how many cases there still are under this scheme?
4:42 Stephen Curtis: So if we take a step back and look at the Central Bank, they still put out mortgage arrears reports, and there's still the guts of 20,000 long term mortgage arrears, and the vast majority of them have been there since 2011, 2012, that kind of time. The Central Bank measures it in, is it more than a year or two years, but actually is it more than 10 years?
5:06 Sinéad Ryan: Yeah. Well, actually, they recently had to set up the 10 year basket, didn't they?
5:10 Stephen Curtis: Yeah, exactly.
5:11 Sinéad Ryan: Because there were so many.
5:12 Stephen Curtis: And these are people that are in that, they're in this 10 year basket. There's about 17, 18, 19,000 that fall into that category.
5:19 Sinéad Ryan: It's a lot, isn't it?
5:21 Stephen Curtis: Like, mortgage arrears has been very successfully dealt with, if you think of it. It was a really, really big problem going back maybe 10 or 12 years and there were hundreds of thousands of people affected. And to be fair, the government have brought in things like the Insolvency Service and the Mortgage Arrears Resolution Process. What Mortgage to Rent is really trying to solve is a problem for those people that are not going to be able to resolve their difficulties through those other, more straightforward channels.
5:46 But there's a recognition there that these people still need to live in the houses that they're in, or they have to live somewhere. And the most sensible place to stay is the house that they're currently living in. The other alternative is they're chucked out of the house, the house is repossessed and they're on the housing list, and then that creates a problem somewhere else down the line.
6:06 Sinéad Ryan: Just in terms of practicalities though, because they're living in the house, so how long do they stay there paying rent? Is it for the rest of their lives?
6:15 Stephen Curtis: Yeah, so the way it works is that when we come in, we buy the property off the bank, and then we enter into a lease with the Local Authority, and that's a long term lease. They're typically 25 years. There's a few of them that are only for the duration that the person actually wants to stay in the house.
6:33 Sinéad Ryan: So you're the kind of the holding landlord.
6:35 Stephen Curtis: Correct.
6:36 Sinéad Ryan: And then the money goes, so the Local Authority is the go between.
6:40 Stephen Curtis: Yeah, and the reason for that is that it's a protection for people that are in the scheme, because the lease between us and the Local Authority can't be broken. I can't turn around tomorrow and say, actually, I don't really want to continue with this anymore. The Local Authority are the landlord of the person who's in the property. They pay rent to the Local Authority. If they have any problems with the property, they talk to them.
7:01 Sinéad Ryan: OK, so your organisation and similar ones purchase this as a kind of an asset, I suppose. You're a fund, but bought it as an asset. So is your long term arrangement that you will run this asset as a rental? I mean, obviously you hope and you will want it to increase in value over time. Is there a point at which you're allowed to sell that, or do you have to do it in agreement with all the other parties?
7:33 Stephen Curtis: So we buy the property and we enter into this long term lease with the Local Authority. That lease survives no matter what we do. So if I go bust tomorrow, that lease survives, the Local Authority step in and take it. So ultimately what we're looking to do is take a very long term view of 25, 30, 40 years at this, and that it's a very stable, set thing for that period of time.
7:58 Sinéad Ryan: OK, so it's an asset on your balance sheet, but you're running it as an income.
8:01 Stephen Curtis: Exactly.
8:01 Sinéad Ryan: OK. Do these people ever resolve their debt? Have you had cases where people come back and say, do you know what, I'm in a far better place now, I'd like to buy my house back?
8:11 Stephen Curtis: Absolutely. So one of the things that people have the absolute right to under the scheme, it's written in, is an option agreement that they can repurchase the property down the line if their circumstances improve. I said the first thing people want to know about is what rent they're paying, and the second thing is who's going to find out about it. The third thing they want to know is, can I buy the house back? Because everybody thinks their circumstances are going to improve. For a lot of people that's not going to happen, but everybody thinks, my circumstances will improve, I'll be able to buy the house back. And under the scheme, you can.
8:42 Now, what we find actually, and this might seem a little bit counterintuitive, is when they get into it, they might want to buy it, but actually they don't when they get there. They'll have had a bad experience with borrowing money and getting mortgages in the past. Their ability to access finance is tricky as well, because they're either older or they don't have the credit rating that will get a mortgage. They're going to be stuck with a non bank lender at higher interest rates.
9:09 Sinéad Ryan: Yeah, even if they could do that.
9:11 Stephen Curtis: And the other thing that people find, and they say it all the time, is that there's great certainty from paying rent to the Local Authority. If your income goes up, your rent goes up a little bit, but if your income goes down, your rent goes down. So they know, I'm never going to get caught here.
9:25 Sinéad Ryan: OK. What would you say to people? Can people still avail of this, by the way?
9:29 Stephen Curtis: Absolutely.
9:30 Sinéad Ryan: So what would you say to people who are in arrears in the mortgage, they really have nowhere else to turn and they don't want to leave their property? Do they get in touch with the bank? Does the bank get in touch with you, or how does that work?
9:41 Stephen Curtis: So what I'd say to people is, first of all, if you're in mortgage arrears and you're worried, you're in the MARP process, so engage with that and get some advice. The places to go get advice are, first of all, either MABS or a Personal Insolvency Practitioner. Find out what your options are.
9:58 If either MABS or that Personal Insolvency Practitioner say, we can't restructure this for you, and we deal with the PIPs all the time, they will then refer them to us, or someone else who does Mortgage to Rent, to say, look, see if this is going to be a solution for you. Me or one of our team will sit down with you and go through it and explain it from beginning to end. We've a 25 page brochure, and we'll take you through it. We don't have time to go through it here today, but there's nothing you won't know at the end.
10:25 Sinéad Ryan: All right. Well, listen, look, as the least worst option, I mean, it's hard to get excited about Mortgage to Rent in the sense that it comes after a period of great turmoil for people and homeowners, and there is a sense of it's all gone wrong. But there is a salvaging of people's lives, and particularly where they can stay in the home where they brought up their kids, it's near the schools, it's beside all the people they've grown up with. It is a positive turn.
10:53 Stephen Curtis: That's a great way to describe it. It's a salvage of the situation, because we find people really just want, they don't really care what the solution is, they just want a solution and to move on. And what we're really trying to say to people is that if you're in this situation, there is a salvageable solution here for you, but you have to engage with, as I said, MABS or the PIPs, to go and talk and find out if it's going to work.
11:17 Sinéad Ryan: All right. OK. Stephen Curtis, CEO of Irish Homes, which is one of the companies that does this salvage operation, thanks a million for joining us on The Home Show today to tell us all about that. Do you have a website, people?
11:30 Stephen Curtis: We do, yes. So people can find out all about it at irishhomes.ie. All the information is there.
Transcript lightly edited for readability: repetitions and false starts removed, meaning unchanged. Figures are as stated on air.