Legally speaking, a "normal" bankrupt would still own their family home, and they would have no liability to the bank, as that liability was written off in the bankruptcy. Whilst you have "surrendered" your home, I can see no reason why the bank could not reverse that surrender.
Many bankrupts cannot simply afford any type of mortgage, and thus have to surrender up the family home. What some bankrupts hope to do is to "assume" the mortgage and continue paying it in order to retain ownership of the family home.
The whole situation is in a state of flux at the moment, with different banks having different policies.
In the UK they have legislation that allows bankrupts to "assume" the mortgage. However, I understand that Irish legislation has no such provision.
Legally speaking, what a bank needs to do is to grant you a new mortgage. However, the bank may argue that their underwriting rules prohibit them giving a new mortgage to a bankrupt. What needs to happen here is that the Central Bank needs to relax the rules on lending to bankrupts so that they may retain their family homes.
Jim Stafford