Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I do not condone violence from any source.

The Central Bank's residential mortgage arrears and repossession statistics for the second quarter of 2018 show that accounts in arrears for more than 700 days now constitute 42% of all accounts in arrears.

At €2.5 billion, they represent 91% of outstanding arrears balances. Non-bank entities now hold 61,446 mortgage accounts for principal dwelling houses and buy-to-lets combined. Of this number, 47,820 relate to principal dwelling house mortgage accounts.

These numbers provide us with some important context for the sad events that unfolded in Roscommon last week. Video of the event shows two elderly brothers and their sister being violently dragged against their will from the only home they have had for 64 years by private security agents all the way from Craigavon in County Armagh. Much has been made of the physical violence surrounding the event but remarkably little has been heard about the financial and emotional violence heaped on the tens of thousands of families right across the State by both the banks and the so-called vulture funds. They have the terrorised the old and infirm not with baseball bats but with bailiffs and sheriffs. The registrar and county sheriff system have too often been allowed to act with impunity, inflicting misery on ordinary people and families in mortgage distress. Private investment funds have launched their attacks through the letter box, with menacing and demanding letters and late-night phone calls. They have driven fathers to suicide and left children devastated by loss on many occasions. I am aware of many examples and I am sure the Taoiseach does as well. These investment funds have imprisoned mothers who have tried to stand up to them in the courts despite having no legal representation.

Is this not a violent assault equal in gravity and distress with the events of last week? It is. Only last week I had to write to Start Mortgages after representations were made to me on behalf of an elderly couple in County Laois. Start Mortgages is pursuing the couple despite being notified through medical certs and otherwise that the husband is suffering from a terminal illness and is wheelchair-bound, and despite their attempts to engage constructively to repay the debt. There has been no meaningful engagement from Start Mortgages.

Every day of the year, families are being hounded or terrorised by debt collection practices in the State. These can only be described as vicious, cruel and inhumane. They are being supported by a hands-off approach that gives a de facto blessing and the guise of legality because gardaí stand idly by. I am not blaming those gardaí. Courts are handing out court orders with no indication of how these orders should be enforced. They must change or otherwise we are simply giving a blank cheque to these firms to act in any way that they see fit with the blessings of the court backing them. A third force is meanwhile coming in from Northern Ireland. I call on the Taoiseach to take action and do what Deputy John McGuinness's committee recommended, which is to give powers of compellability and allow committees to bring these people before them at least.

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