In 2013 the Irish Mortgage Holders Organisation entered into an arrangement to act as a broker to offer advice to borrowers in their dealings with AIB.

The scheme was launched as a pilot but has proved to be a success and will now be extended for another 12 months.

The scheme now receives around 125 calls a day.

Between 75-100 of those deals already struck involved debt write-down on family home mortgages of €1,000-190,000, where the families were allowed to stay living in their homes.

Some 279 resolutions included debt write-down involving properties which were then voluntarily sold. Many of these properties in the buy-to-let sector.

AIB said the scheme, which is free, has delivered significantly for customers who might not otherwise have engaged with the bank.

Speaking on RTE Radio this morning, David Hall, director of Irish Mortgage Holders Organisation said that the deals done were a complete restructuring rather than short term arrangements.

“These are completely restructuring their arrangements as opposed to a short term arrangements.”

Mr Hall said there were between “75 -100 people had a write-down. The arrangement with AIB was if someone has to lose their family home that the person would be left with certainty around the debt. That means affordable monthly payments to the bank for seven years and then the balance was written off.”

He wasn’t able to give an exact figure for the overall write-down but said it was in the “millions”.

“It could be five million. We don’t track the figure. It is our not our objective to track the figure.”

Mr Hall said that the largest amount of debt written off was “maybe €300k”.

Mr Hall said that 1330 cases had been dealt with in the last year and there were “170 proposals with AIB at the moment and there are 150 in the office at the office,.

He said that 95pc of proposals were accepted by AIB.

Mr Hall said it offered hope for people and said that the potential for other banks to adopt the proposals was good.

“We met the Troika and they were impressed and want to visit us. The Finance Committee recommended that this framework be put into all banks.”

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