Banking on austerity in Ireland

Banking on austerity in Ireland


De Facto
Liamy MacNally

Legislation is on track to allow banks to repossess homes. Daft as it appears it is important, the Government claims, to enact laws to allow banks to evict people. Those in authority say that it is imperative after a court ruled (the Dunne Judgment) against legislation introduced in 2009 that unwittingly outlawed repossessions by banks. Imperative for the banks, it seems, and the Troika – that trinity of saviours.
For those of us outside the well-paid loop and mindset of politicians and bankers the legislation reminds us of colonialism. It transports us back on the plains of the pale ghost of history where eviction was the order of the day, Irish families ousted by the foreigner, aided and abetted by Irishmen.
We were critical of the go-for, the gombeen man, who responded to the landlord’s every beck and call. He jumped, on request. They are still with us except that they are now the over-paid part of the elite that rule our country. They are the politicians, being kept in the style to which they have become accustomed by the ball and chain financiers. They bring in laws to suit the bankers whom they have allowed to strip us yet they will not legislate for the people they were elected to serve, the citizens of the country.
Banks will be back on the repossession trail by the summer. This seems to be of the utmost importance to those who dangle the dollars. What does it matter that 23,000 Irish home mortgage holders are more than two years in arrears? Or that thousands of others are in difficulty? It is strange how legislation will assist banks to repossess properties yet what will assist those who find themselves in mortgage hell because of banks? The Government has it all backways, to put it mildly.
This move in favour of the banks is backed up by the Central Bank. “An act of terrorism” is how Mr David Hall of the Irish Mortgage Holders Organisation described it. All the legislation will do is give the banks a licence to heap more stress on people in repayment difficulties. There is no point in Government TDs and Ministers claiming otherwise. Yet they will sit there and smile at us while granting such powers to banks.
The Government will claim that this legislation is needed to fix a ‘leak’ in the law. They will also claim that mortgage holders in dire straits will be protected under the Personal Insolvency Act 2012 and that the Code of Conduct on Mortgage Arrears is still binding on banks. Why is it that many people do not believe this? Ask those in financial difficulty.
Once again we have the usual train of back-slapping following the announcement that ‘our repayments’ are to be spread out for another seven years. This is like thanking the bully who beats you up daily for not beating you up while someone is looking.
This country cannot afford to pay back what has been foisted on us. The present Government told us as much when they were in opposition. Now the smell of power permeates every thing they do and say. So much for integrity! Why has this Government, in such a short time in office, continued to heap one act of betrayal upon another?
Stephen Kinsella from UL, writing in the Irish Independent about Ireland, Spain and Portugal said the “deal is a step in the right direction, and a tacit admission that the programmes are damaging these economies. The promissory note deal, the maturity extension, the treatment of bondholders in Spain – all of these elements combine to paint a picture of the European authorities trying hard to do the right thing, albeit within their mandates, and constrained by an official need to pretend to be correct.”
He also refers to the chair of the eurogroup which made the decision to extend the maturity of the loans, Jeroen Dijsselbloem, who ‘had to state specifically that the extensions weren’t explicit admissions of failure on the part of the authorities’. What does that tell you?
Mr Dijsselbloem told reporters the maturity deal for Ireland ‘doesn’t prove that programmes don’t work, it proves that programmes do work because it helps them to get out of the programme’. This shows a clear need to recast what is, in effect, a changing of the terms of the bailout which the authorities recognise, behind closed doors, as having done more harm than good.
It is one crisis after another with a Government ‘make it up as you go along’ attitude. What would happen if Government Ministers and TDs started to stand up and say no to what is being asked by faceless, nameless officials from foreign countries about Ireland’s future? Suppose we started saying no to the bankers…