Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I too wish to comment on this legislation, which amends of a number of Acts to facilitate an increase in the mandatory retirement age for uniformed public servants to 62 years, and for gardaí especially. So much more of this legislation is varnish and veneer. I too have cases that I have highlighted here dozens of times about Pat Esmonde and John O'Brien who lost their lives off Helvick Head, and Michael Kingston is helping out there too. No proper investigation was carried out.

There is much veneer with this legislation with amendments and typographical errors and amendments of other Acts. Where is the reform in the justice system? With indulgence of the Ceann Comhairle, who may allow me or may not, I am going to raise the eviction of the McCann family in Roscommon. I have documents in my possession, well verified, that KBC Bank received no court order. It had no proper legal court order. The same gang from the North that went into Balbriggan Garda station carried out an eviction on behalf of KBC Bank acted outside the law. They had a forged document. The former Master of the High Court has done extensive work on this with our group on the Land Registry and documents not being proper for repossessions. When are we going to tidy up that Act and insist that the former Taoiseach, Deputy Varadkar, and former Minister, Deputy Flanagan, and the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, have misled the people about what happened to that family.

There are three men in jail now with seven huge sentences and they have been done a grievous wrong. We spent years here trying to correct the Birmingham Six and Guildford Four sentences, and God knows whatever else in other jurisdictions and we saw what happened there, but this is a grievous wrong. If the court order was not a valid document and if it was a forged document, which is what I am led to believe; that is not good enough. Deputies Healy-Rae, Collins and Nolan went into KBC Bank one time in defence of people and the arrest of families who had no one to support them. There has to be legal documents and the Courts Service must be reformed to ensure that every letter, comma and syllable in those documents is proofread and effective when other security agents are being used with no registration. We have met at the offices in Thurles and Tipperary town with the people in charge of this and it is not being addressed. This is an appalling injustice that has happened where three men are serving a 15-year sentence, which according to the paperwork I have here, is grossly and completely wrong and false. That must be rectified by our courts system. Where will be get legislation to address the hundreds of families out there who have lost businesses, the many lives that have been lost and the many people who have suffered and are still suffering, and the paperwork is not right? The Land Registry has completely and utterly failed us here. The system is not up to date and documents are being used where they are not correct in the Land Registry. In this case a document was used, which was a forged High Court summons.

That is a very serious matter.

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