TV promotes people power, writes ISABEL MORTON

LAST MONDAY evening, having started to write a jolly little column, I dumped it all (in the line of duty) in favour of watching Richard Curran's programme Property Crash – Where are we now?on RTÉ 1.

As the closing credits rolled, I sighed in despair. Had anything changed? Was anything likely to change? What were we doing about it? (Answers: no, no and damn all.)

In fact, we were told that property prices are still falling, banks are still not lending, homes continue to be repossessed and the nation’s nerves are in tatters.

Was there any hope? Yes, based on the closest example of a similar property crash in Finland, but only if you are one of the few lucky ones who have a secure job, no debts and can survive the predicted further drop in prices over the next year or so, followed by at least three years of flat-lining, where there will be no movement in property values, followed by a very gradual increase, in line with inflation.

Ireland is desperately hoping that, having reacted somewhat faster than Japan, we will not experience its 15-year property slump. They refer to the 1990s as their “lost decade”, a term we are already using to describe the fact that, to date, Irish property prices have fallen to values last seen in the early months of 2002, with predictions that prices will fall further, to 1999 or 2000 levels.

Meanwhile, if the status quo is permitted to continue, the banks will continue to terrorise borrowers, who in turn, will be forced to survive in penury and under a cloud of fear.

So, nothing new then; just another decade or so, in which we will continue to show disregard for basic human suffering and allow our nation to collapse, both morally and socially.

Returning to my laptop, leaving Pat Kenny's Frontlineprogramme on in the background, I despaired of yet another depressing studio debate in which the same issues would be rehashed, with the situation, as usual, becoming progressively worse all the time.

Thinking back through my own contributions to this publication, I felt sure I could dig out something from the Talking Propertyarchive, regurgitate it and nobody would notice.

Like everyone else, I’ve been ranting on about the same issues for years and nothing has ever been done about them.

With one ear open, in the vain hope that we might hear something different, I could hardly believe it when Kenny introduced barrister Ross Maguire of New Beginnings and his proposal for restructuring borrowers’ loan repayments.

The senior counsel and his colleagues (barristers, solicitors, economists and others), who set up New Beginnings almost a year ago, to test the boundaries of the duty of care owed by lending institutions to their borrowers and to offer free legal help to struggling homeowners, have come up with this new payment structure, which they believe, the banks should be forced to accept.

It appeared as if Pat Kenny, his studio audience and possibly the entire nation, had suddenly realised, that despite successive government promises, bank recapitalisation, pay cuts, tax hikes, the setting up of Nama, and receiving of gold stars for good behaviour from the IMF and ECB, the reality was that nothing has worked.

There was a discernibly different, calm edginess to the studio debate, almost as though everyone had come to the same conclusion at the same time: Irish citizens have tolerated enough from their lending institutions and will tolerate no more.

There were no battles, shouting, interruptions, or disputes in the RTE studio, just quiet acceptance of the fact that, despite being given every possible assistance and opportunity, our banks have, once again, failed us.

In time, we may look back on Curran's documentary and the Frontlinedebate, as a turning point in this recession. It may be noted as the night when the public took hold of the reins.

On Tuesday, everywhere I went, there was talk of little else but the television programmes. Yesterday, in an effort to research the reaction to the New Beginning proposal for restructuring borrowers loan repayments, I did a few searches on the internet.

Scanning down through one particular article, I was pleased to find that the government were taking the subject of mortgage debt very seriously, until I found mention of the Taoiseach Brian Cowen and realised that I was reading a news report from July 2010.

Today, the Keane Report on mortgage debt is due to be published and the Dáil will debate it next week. Maybe this time?

Isabel Morton is a property consultant