Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I, too, believe that the Government is making continual efforts to untangle the blockages in the courts. Those blockages are there because many people have been fighting lone battles against the might of the banks and not getting a fair hearing in many courts. They have experienced terrible trauma. I and other Oireachtas Members have attended many court hearings with families. I was in the court in Waterford where there was a huge Garda presence to stop people attending. Those families who could not afford the legal eagles had advocates with them who were sometimes disallowed and removed. We saw some very ugly scenes.

We must be reflective. We must realise where we have come from and the mess we have got into. We must see how the banks have been bailed out and how we were led up the garden path. I certainly was and so was the former Minister for Finance, the late Brian Lenihan Jnr. Our grandchildren will be paying back the banks' debts while the bondholders got off scot free. Some legislation, including the land and conveyancing legislation, allowed the lending institutions to do what they liked with people and families. Each day, the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government considers various actions but the basic problem is the inaction of this Legislature in respect of the banks and the courts. Sadly, the courts do not serve the people. When the Circuit Court in South Tipperary handed down judgments that treated people mercilessly, it was held up by the good activities of certain people, including those involved with the modern Land League. Now we are trying to circumvent that again to let them carry on with their merciless campaign of evictions. Such evictions create homelessness. No matter what we do in this House or what the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government announces or what rent caps he brings in for Dublin, Cork and other places, we are playing catch-up.

The real problem is the 200,000 homes that are lined up for the families in them to be evicted. The buy-to-lets are also a problem. I do not understand why the Government cannot see the problems and deal with them.

I support amendments Nos. 4, 5 and 6 because they are very good amendments and I compliment the proposers on tabling them. They are very necessary, though I know they will probably not succeed. We must stand up for our people. After the past we have had in this country with the horrors of the Famine and all the different situations after that, we now have a modern democracy, or so we are told, in which the banks control us and twist us by the tail. It is quite hollow, shallow and very wrong. There is trauma, distress, sickness and fear inflicted on families. It is divide and conquer. It is a case of our people being downtrodden.

There are attempts being made in some cases to provide some legal fees to help families. It does not matter whether a person can pay legal fees after he or she has been evicted because it is often difficult to get lawyers and legal people to represent the evicted parties. In some courts, a person cannot even hear what is going on. I was in a court when a woman was taken from Cork Prison to the Four Courts to sit in the front row. An advocate was disallowed to speak on her behalf, though she was not able to stand not to mind speak with the fear, terror and trauma of being incarcerated and put out of her home. We should all take trips to the courts to see what is going on. I know that my honourable colleague beside me, Deputy Jim O'Callaghan, is probably used to the courts but many ordinary people are not. Justice has to be seen to be done as well as be done. Justice has to be heard, but it is not. On that particular occasion, I had to go right from the back of the court towards the front, seat by seat. We appealed to the eminent justice to speak up, as well as the lawyers for the prosecution, but to no avail. It may as well have been carried on inside a confessional. Nobody could hear a word. It was all mumblings, utterings and legal jargon.

This is the kind of torture that is being perpetrated. It is no different from what went on in the days of the Black and Tans that our good ancestors fought to get rid of. Our own system is supposed to be serving the people. We are public servants and Teachtaí Dála; we are messenger boys to the people. However, the system is not serving the people. We must cry halt to this. We cannot have subverted ways of allowing financial institutions and vulture funds that have bought up these properties to make a killing. It is bad enough to leave all the bondholders off scot free, even though they had insurance at the time, let alone to allow this continue to be perpetrated. As I said, we will never deal with the housing crisis while this is going on in tandem. It is like a three-legged race. They are both intertwined. We keep evicting people and threatening them with eviction and serious trauma comes from that. That trauma inflicted on families is a very big factor in our suicide and mental health rates.

There is merciless treatment in courts, even in my own courthouse in Tipperary in which people are not getting a fair hearing or fair treatment. When the county registrar left and went on to Wicklow, she was brought back again because there were not enough evictions happening in Tipperary. That is what I was told. Where are we going in this modern democracy as we come to the close of a year of celebration in 2016? The men of 1916 would turn in their graves if they saw what is being done in the country that they fought so nobly for and gave their lives and sacrifices for in the name of freedom. For no good reason of their own, people who tried to house themselves by building their own houses or by paying for it in rented accommodation with some assistance from the State now find themselves in a perilous situation. We in this Chamber are oblivious to what has been going and what continues to go on in the reign of terror being visited on these people. I compliment the proposers of these amendments and I support them 100%.

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