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5 JULY 2017 Kilkenny Reporter
News
Home alert: Families live JIMMY RHATIGAN
JIMMYRHATIGAN@GMAIL.COM
Vulture Funds barking up the wrong tree
IT IS a matter of life and debt that has tragically spiralled into a choice between life and death. Vultures are hovering, having been invited into our country and if they are not controlled there will be a tsunami of evictions. Turfing people out of family homes will turn our so-called isle of saints and scholars into a vale of tears, a country of wrecked homeless families, torment, suicide and depression. Ireland will be a Hell Hole and what Oliver Cromwell and his murderers did to our people will pale into significance. All of this could happen as greedy politicians, many of them living in a bubble, look on, take no action, fail to help families with distressed mortgages, families who are consistently persecuted by banks and other institutions. These are banks that were bailed out to the tune of €65billion, avarice-ridden banks that are now back greedier than ever, to haunt and torment people who had no choice but to empty their pockets to save them when austerity struck. As a family newspaper we
love to bring positive news stories to our people but today at The Reporter we believe it is our duty to highlight an evil that could destroy thousands of families who simply want to live their lives in peace and happiness. The foregoing are not our words. They are the utterances of our local Dáil Deputy John McGuinness who warns our people of what is coming down the line if urgent action is not taken. He spoke exclusively to us as he berated Government Minister Michael Noonan who he says welcomed Vulture Funds into Ireland, claiming the move was necessary “The latter statement will come back to haunt him and our country for generations to come,” John warns. “The affects of Vulture Funds on society and families would be completely and utterly negative. People with mortgages in arrears will get no compassion, no humanity, they will live day to day in trauma and fear. “It will be far worse than evictions that are in our Irish history books. People will be tortured every day. It will be
evictions on the drip. “There is €16.5billion of distressed debt in banks, representing 70,000 mortgages, 33,000 of 360 or more days in arrears, with no hope of ever being paid. “There is hope but first I felt it was necessary to outline what could happen if vital action is not taken. However, if proposed action does not get the backing of our politicians and civil servants then we are doomed, smashed as a nation that may never recover. “A proposal of a group of us, TDs from cross parties and others including Senator David Norris, are setting up a National Housing Co-op Agency. “Our proposal is to buy these mortgages from banks, take mortgages and properties into the co-op and restructure debt for people in financial trouble. “This will ensure they can continue to live in their own homes, pay rent or a restructured mortgage, without Vulture Fund rates. “This would make a huge difference to families, would safeguard and help communities and protect a society that could crumble out of control if the present dire circumstances are not changed,” John continues.
Pics: Donal Foley
Cross party support for National Housing Co-op Agency
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5 JULY 2017 Kilkenny Reporter
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in fear as Vultures hover “Sadly, our State and political system is standing by, watching lives being destroyed. People in huge debt are no longer productive in society or our economy. They are restrained by indebtedness, haunted about where they will live next if evicted. “The agency will prevent Vultures from evicting people as courts can insist on settlements. This is not something that has been dreamed up from fantasy economics. “It is a sensible business proposal which is prevalent in European countries and beyond. Look at what Avonmore Co-op grew into. “We are going back to the roots of the co-op movement. Look at the credit unions. They are for the benefit of our people, not for profit.” John explains that €5billion raised on the markets through bonds will be the foundation. The collateral for bonds would be the deeds of people’s properties. One to one agreements would be made with distressed mortgage holders. “We are arguing for the establishment of this Co-op Agency. But we must have legislation approved through our department of finance.
“We are bringing specialists, academics and economists from Europe and the United States, people who have seen this system operate, know what we are trying to do and will work to impress our reluctant political system. “Legislation for this plan was written in the name of the Master of the High Court Edmund Honohan who sees these cases going through his court on a daily basis. “If we do not get urgent support, then very quickly there will be 17,000 more cases before the courts. “We bailed out the banks but we seem to have a huge reluctance to bail out families. People are important to the social structure and fabric of our country, we are ignoring them. “A feared tsunami of evictions will be devastating for families right across our country, including Kilkenny City and County. Evicted people will end up on local authority housing lists that are already crammed with a queue of 130,000. “Homeless Kilkenny families are being housed in a local hotel, local authorities are not building houses. The situation is catastrophic.
“Fr Peter McVerry of the Peter McVerry Housing Trust is among those backing our bill. He says that you either support this bill or you support the Vultures.” Support for the co-op plan is coming from Sinn Féin, the Labour Party, left austerity groups in Dáil Éireann, Fianna Fáil is considering the bill and Fine Gael is against it. “Remember we were dealing with the British Empire with Cromwell. With present evictions we are confronted by the Irish State. “We saved the banks for Germany and the European Union. Our co-op plan does not mean we are writing off debts. We are simply making it possible for people to stay in their own homes. “To think that the Government is hedging its bets and not supporting it, is a scandal in itself. “Visit our local courts any week and you will get an idea what hundreds of local families are going through. Release these Vultures on our people and hundreds in financial trouble will quickly spiral to thousands in our city and county alone,” John concludes.
Trembling in
United front: Senator David Norris, Deputy Mattie McGrth and Deputy John McGuinness
the local courts JIMMY RHATIGAN
JIMMYRHATIGAN@GMAIL.COM
MOST registrar’s courts in Kilkenny would have 40 eviction cases before them in any one sitting. These are cases where banks are attempting to repossess properties. “This is not somebody else’s problem. It is our problem,” John McGuinness warns. “On one side of the court you have well dressed barristers and solicitors with gear on, representing banks and financial institutions. Then you have the registrar of the court sitting on a high bench. “On the other side you have families who are now victims of the system, standing there trembling in front of the court, not knowing what to do next, knot knowing how to deal with the bank’s well equipped legal army. “You can watch as an arm of the State threatens the very existence of families. Politicians
have brought this about as they established these courts. The courts are not geared to deal with the issue of evictions. “The registrar kicks the can down the road by stalling the evictions but what that does is to keep families in their home and locally the female registrar is to be credited for that. “But for another number of weeks or months the banks chase and harass those concerned, wrecking people’s health and
wellbeing, people who are cast aside by the State. “These people are the forgotten consequences of the years of austerity and collapse of the banks. How long are politicians going to let this go on.? “When we talk about it in the Dáil, some stare back as if you have two heads. Those politicians are people who are being pushed in a different direction by civil servants and bureaucrats,” John continues.
“I have dealt with the case of a Cork mother and father and their seven children who are homeless. People speak about voluntary repossessions. These repossessions represent families so beaten up and kicked around by the State and banks that they throw in the towel. “I meet people like our Cork friends every day in my Kilkenny clinics, young children crying, people in torment, mental depression. It is outrageous. “I doubt if those who died in 1916 died for the Ireland of today. They must be spinning in their graves. Did they die in vain? Do we ignore and disregard those who sadly took their own lives by suicide? “We are not talking about people who are greedy or grabbing We are speaking about people who were led by the nose by banks, people who saved banks and other institutions and now we treat those good people with contempt, good families who are in a trap.”
John hears mortgage stories from constituents at his clinic on O’Loughlin Road