Alarm at 13 home repossession orders in Mayo

Anton McNulty

THIRTEEN families in Mayo lost their homes in the first six months of the year after repossession orders were granted against them, court figures have revealed.
The statistics from the Courts Services show that a total of 22 orders were granted between January and June with more than 50 other civil bills currently in the system to be processed. Fianna FΡil TD, Dara Calleary, expressed alarm that 13 families in Mayo have lost their homes and that more people could be forced to hand back the keys to their homes.
“These figures are proof that there is a surge in repossessions right across the country, with more than 600 families hit with repossession orders over the past six months. The crisis is touching every community and there are many families in Mayo who are living in fear of losing their home. This is a terrible prospect for them to face, yet the Government has failed to take any action to address the escalating uncertainty.

‘Frightening scenario’
“There are now 46 families in Mayo whose cases are before the courts, and who could lose their homes. This is an extremely frightening scenario to be dealing with, especially given the fact that there is a very real homelessness problem, which has been emerging over recent months in the county. More and more families are falling into the homelessness trap; at the end of June there were 127 people in emergency accommodation in the western region, ten families classified as homeless and a 71 percent jump in the number of children without a roof over their heads,” he said.
Deputy Calleary lambasted the Government for what he sees as their failure to ‘take charge of any of the issues that are feeding into this crisis’. He claimed families were paying the price for electing a Government ‘which feigns interest but delivers on nothing’.
“There has been absolutely no movement on mortgage arrears, private sector rents are escalating month on month, and there is a shortage of suitable housing because Fine Gael and Labour all but stopped the construction of social housing.
“What will it take for this Government to wake up and realise that we are in the midst of a housing and homelessness emergency? How many families have to lose their homes? How big does the emergency accommodation list have to get before the Government gets serious about the issue? Every day that Ministers continue to sit back and do nothing, the number of people losing their home rises and this crisis worsens,” Deputy Calleary stated.