Hi - Over the past few days Ive heard alot about debt forgivness and helping distressed mortgage holders, I am one of those people struggling with mortgage repayments, this time last year there was two of us working and had borrowed to purchase a house now in worth half of what we paid for it. We borrowed what was in our means to borrow at the time, and what the banks were advising we could borrow. We weren't reckless we thought we made a good investment in buying our home as this was the advice we were given, I remember Bertie Ahern at the time dismissing David Mc Williams suggestion that the property market had got out of control, banks were given targets to lend and there were even mortgage products encouraging parents to release equity from their own homes to help out their children. It was a government campaign to get people to purchase houses as they were gaining from sales of houses and banks were getting richer. It was alway a win win situation for the previous government as they walked away with lump sums and bankers have not yet been brought to justice. I would also like to stress that 55,000 people are in trouble with their mortgages not because they were reckless, it mainly because of Job loss caused by this economic mess. Mortgages would not be in this condition if Jobs were saved, thats another rant for another Day! I get annoyed with bodies that suggest for one minute that people were reckless we invested in property not to make money but to raise our families and provide a safe home, so please try to look at this from that point of view.