IMF paper comparing mortgage arrears resolution in Ireland, Spain and U.S.

An interesting report mentioned by Cliff Taylor in today's Irish Times Crunch time on mortgage arrears

Resolving Residential Mortgage Distress: Time to Modify?; by Jochen R. Andritzky; IMF Working Paper No. 14/226; December 1, 2014
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/cat/longres.aspx?sk=42577.0

The US and Spain both moved quickly enough into foreclosures – or repossessions – with 15 per cent of mortgage accounts being foreclosed since 2007 in the US and more than 4 per cent in Spain. If we had foreclosures at even Spanish levels – and the crisis here was worse – some 30,000 houses would have been repossessed.

Instead the latest figures indicate fewer than 4,000 homes were repossessed by the end of last year: 1,100 via court-enforced orders and the rest via voluntary repossessions. Others will have sold under pressure from the banks.

The political problem is that there is no “big bang” solution. This is outlined clearly in the IMF paper, which says that some kind of widespread programme of across-the-board debt relief is likely to be expensive and ineffective – and also to cost the banks.

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That should be thrown at every Hall et al every time they start pulling at the usual heart strings

Delboy said:

That should be thrown at every Hall et al every time they start pulling at the usual heart strings

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A few comments;
1. Could it be our arrears situation was/is worse than USA & Spain.
2. Could it be that if arrears were tackled promptly that our Banks (notwithstanding funds already in by us) could not have survived the extra cold shock of repossession write-offs.
3. Could it be that prompt repossessions would have created an unmanageable housing/social issue.
4. Could it be that our Banks didn,t/don,t have the skill base to manage arrears.(up to 2008 their skill was shovelling out funds , not arrears management).
5. Because of delay in arrears sorting (by borrowers & lenders) and with economy more robust , that by delay and increase in home prices and low rates we may escape the worst losses for Banks and only have hard core repossessions . (if so, it is luck over management)

I'm normally not one in favour of kicking cans down the street, but as a nation we've done this - have we escaped the worst ? Was the inevitable made more palatable by delays?