The recent report by the ESRI on negative equity in the Irish housing market exposes the black hole that Irish householders were lead into by the speculators and the banks.

The ESRI estimates that up to one third of mortgage holders, nearly 200,000 householders, could be trapped with mortgages vastly exceeding the value of their homes by the end of 2010. And even this is based on a conservative estimate of the drop in house price levels.

This is nothing short of a major theft of billions of euro from ordinary workers and their families and particularly from the generation of young people cajoled into 35 and 40 year mortgages. Some of this generation will not see the value of their homes rise above their mortgages for another 12 years. Coupled with the phenomenal increase in unemployment and the rising numbers of mortgage holders experiencing repayment problems, this is a major crisis in the making.

And while the banks will see their bad debts taken on by the taxpayer, there is no NAMA solution for home owners. Not a single cent should be given to bailout the banks who made billions off the backs of workers and householders and not a single house should be repossessed. These banks should be immediately taken into public ownership, under democratic control and the principal of mortgages immediately reassessed and reduced to affordable levels in line with the true value of the home.

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