The number of homeowners in mortgage arrears has fallen for a third consecutive quarter but those behind in repayments by two years or more has risen again.
Figures from the Central Bank also showed the number of buy-to-let mortgage accounts in arrears unexpectedly rose during the period. Banks have been criticised for failing to tackle the high number of defaulting buy-to-let landlords on their books.
A breakdown of the figures indicated a total of 132,217 mortgages linked to principal dwellings, representing 17.3 per cent of the total, were in arrears at the end of March, a decline of 3.2 per cent on the previous quarter.
The number of accounts in early arrears - defined as less than 90 days - fell by 2.4 per cent, compared with a decrease of 5.7 per cent in the previous quarter.
Mortgage accounts in arrears of between 90 and 720 days also declined by 5,090 over the quarter.
However, the data showed that the decline in the overall number of mortgage accounts in arrears masked continuing increases in very long-term arrears - those behind by two years or more.
Accounts in arrears in this category increased by 1,729 or 5.1 per cent.
The bank said there were 35,314 mortgage accounts with arrears of greater than 720 days corresponding to outstanding balances of €7.4 billion.
Arrears on these accounts represented almost 68 per cent of total arrears outstanding on all principal dwelling mortgage accounts.
The Central Bank noted the pace of increase in longer-term arrears was continuing to moderate.
The figures also showed 92,442 mortgage accounts were classified as restructured at the end of March, reflecting a quarter-on-quarter increase of 10 per cent.
Of these accounts, 80.6 per cent were deemed to be meeting the terms of their current restructure arrangement, the bank said.
Significantly, the largest increases in restructures were recorded for split mortgages, with over 5,000 new arrangements agreed during the quarter.
In contrast to the overall fall in arrears linked to principal dwellings, the number of buy-to-let mortgage accounts behind in their repayments increased by 0.2 per cent from 39,250 to 39,361, which represented 27.2 per cent of the overall.
The bank said this “was entirely driven” by accounts in very long-term arrears, with the increase in arrears of over 720 days outpacing the decrease in arrears up to 720 days.
Sinn Fein spokesman Pearse Doherty welcomed the drop in overall arrears but still described the figures as “very worrying”.
“I welcome the slight decrease in the numbers of households in mortgage arrears. However the figures point to a ramping up of legal action by the banks. The number of legal actions they have initiated in the first quarter of the year has jumped to over 3,000; that is 34 letters a day arriving in people’s letter boxes threatening their home,” he said.
