Press Statement
Another 100 Tipperary Homes to Be Repossessed?
Government owned banks (AIB, PTSB, and EBS) and other lenders have been seeking
repossession of approximately 100 Tipperary homes every month in the past year.
A similar number of family homes will be threatened with eviction before Christmas. In the New Year, this will be augmented by evictions of private tenants if the Courts Bill 2016, currently going through the Dáil, is passed.
Deputies Alan Kelly ( Labour) and Jackie Cahil (FF) voted for the new bill designed to
fast track evictions through the circuit court. Deputy Michael Lowry did not vote in the division on second stage of the Bill.
I call on them now to join me in voting against further stages of the Bill. I am also
seeking support for the formal declaration of a housing emergency by the Oireachtas.
This would prevent the use of the Constitution by Banks to block a moratorium on
evictions while the housing crisis continues. The Oireachtas Commission on Housing
recommended such a moratorium on evictions.
Eviction of blameless families who are the victims of reckless banks and politicians is
savage, cruel and anti-human. It is even more devastating at Christmas time. Suicide rates have increased steeply since the recession.
How many of our neighbours will end up in the next best thing to a stable this Christmas?
Seamus Healy T.D.
22/11/2016
Tel 087 2802199
HOUSING CRISIS AND FAILED CLONLARA EVICTION
The proposals in respect of social housing in this budget are grossly inadequate. Housing is a fundamental right of human beings but shamefully the Taoiseach has written to the EU seeking permission to borrow the money required to build social housing. Ireland does not have the sovereignty to house its own people.
There are 140,000 people on local authority waiting lists and in the first four months of this year an additional 3,527 have been added to that figure. This probably underestimates the situation because people now availing of the housing assistance payments, formerly rent supplement, are being removed from local authority lists. We need an emergency house building programme of at least 10,000 houses per year to address this situation. The Government’s target of 47,000 houses to be provided between now and 2021 will fall far short of dealing with the problem. In 2021 we will be, as we are today, in a housing crisis. There is an absolute necessity to declare a housing emergency. The Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government, Deputy Coveney, said publicly in July that he believed we had a housing crisis. The Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Donohoe, signed off on an emergency measure to ensure that public service pensioners were deprived of their pensions under the Financial Emergency Measures in the Public Interest Act 2015 but this Government refuses to declare a housing emergency which is absolutely necessary to halt evictions generally and in rented and mortgaged properties. The Government, through the banks it owns, Allied Irish Banks, AIB, and Permanent TSB is effectively allowing evictions. It is also allowing them through other banks, and landlords, including vulture funds. These evictions are continuing. As a result, many unfortunate families have been devastated by suicide.
MINISTER MUST INVESTIGATE CLONLARA EVICTION
A shocking eviction was attempted last week in Clonlara in County Clare. I demand that the Minister for Justice and Equality instruct the Garda to investigate the conduct of security companies at that failed eviction of a family. Will the Minister establish what security companies were involved and did those security firms possess an execution order for taking possession of that family home? Did they present an execution order to the owners of the property? If they had no execution order or did not present it to the family, were they guilty of trespass? Were all the security firms involved in this horrific event licensed according to the law? Had all the individuals involved in this attempted repossession legal authority for their actions? Were all the individuals registered employees of the security firms. Were children unlawfully detained during that incident? Were all involved acting on behalf of the Bank of Ireland in which the State has a significant shareholding? This was a shocking and horrific attempted eviction. Thankfully, it failed. In a year when we celebrate the 100th anniversary of 1916, when we promised to cherish all the children of the nation equally, what would Pearse and Connolly and the signatories to the Proclamation think of the eviction battering ram of 2016?
I compliment the family, their friends and neighbours, and the anti-eviction task force which successfully stopped this eviction. People power stopped this eviction. People power will force this Government to stop evictions and to declare a housing emergency. The sooner the Government does that, the better.
A deliberate Government Policy is ripping off Irish Mortgage Holders and Small Businesses.
According a survey of interest rates published by the Central Bank, variable rate new housing loans averaged 4.13%
Typical Eurozone mortgage rates are 2.1%-roughly half the Irish rate.
And interest rates for small businesses have come down everywhere in Europe except Ireland, according to retired governor of the Central Bank, Patrick Honohan .
The excuse given by Government and Central Bank is that they “can’t intervene in the market”
This is pure deception.
They are intervening in the market with the effect of keeping rates artificially high! There is effectively no competition in the Irish Market
Fine Gael Finance Minister Michael Noonan has designated Bank of Ireland(BoI) and Allied Irish Bank (AIB) as “Pillar Banks”. This means that they cannot be allowed to fail and will be subsidised or bailed out again by government if necessary. This has frightened off foreign competition-Danske Bank and Bank of Scotland have already left.
This allows AIB, BoI and Permanent TSB to run a cosy cartel at the expense of householders and small businesses.
The Government is the owner of AIB, Permanent TSB and EBS as it holds the vast majority of the shares. It can call special general meetings of shareholders at any time and it can instruct the banks to lower the rates. All other banks would then have to lower their rates to stay in business
But the government will not do this. Instead it hypocritically calls in the banks from time to time “to express its concern” at the high rates.
The high interest rates are, in effect, a penal tax imposed by the government on householders and small businesses.
The balance sheets of the banks are being repaired by this tax. The banks are being “fattened up for privatisation”. When sold off the money will be used to pay back loans borrowed to bail out huge investors in the banks before they crashed.
There will be no compensation by government for small investors such as investors of pension and redundancy lump sums who were wiped out in the crash of bank shares.
Labour and Fine Gael are deliberately running this scam on the public. Fianna Fáil are just moaning about it rather than exposing this huge scandal.
Candidates of these parties should be forced to explain and to commit to ending the scam
THIS INJUSTICE TO MORTGAGE HOLDERS AND SMALL BUSINESSES MUST END.
Seamus Healy TD
Tel: 087 2802199
15/2/2016
The most consistent and angriest complaint on the door steps is of broken promises and the resultant targeting of those on low and middle incomes for cuts and new taxes.
When considering promises and announcements by Labour and Fine Gael in this General Election Campaign, voters are considering what happened to the promises they made in the last General Election Campaign.
The Public have been pointing out to me the litany of broken promises which include:
St. Michael’s Unit.
At a local level, Labour Leader Eamonn Gilmore, promised to protect South Tipperary General Hospital. Labour Minister, Kathleen Lynch, in government, closed down St Michael’s Psychiatric Unit in Clonmel and transferred it to Kilkenny.
Hospital Trolleys
We will “end the scandal of Hospital Trolleys” said Enda Kenny. The result is Trolley Chaos in our Emergency Departments, the closure of 2,000 hospital beds, the loss of 11,000 health staff and the loss of 2 million home help hours.
Water Tax
Through the 2011 General Election TESCO AD and in its election manifesto, The Labour Party promised to prevent the introduction of domestic water tax. In government they agreed to introduce this tax and Minister Alan Kelly is now implementing it.
Child Benefit
In the 2011 General Election Tesco AD, the Labour Party said it would prevent Fine Gael reducing Child Benefit. Labour leader Joan Burton, in government, did the opposite and cut Child Benefit.
FAMILY HOME TAX
Fine Gael Leader, Enda Kenny, said “ It Is Morally Wrong, Unjust and Unfair to Tax a Person’s Home”. But in Government, he introduced this unfair tax.
Lone Parents
Speaking in the Dáil on 18th April 2012, Minister Joan Burton said she would only proceed with plans to reform the One Parent Family Payment by 2014/15 if she got a “credible and bankable commitment” by the time of Budget 2013 that the Irish Government would put in place “a system of safe, affordable and accessible child care, similar to what is found in the Scandinavian countries to whose systems of social protection we aspire”.
Minister Burton went ahead with the changes without any such child care system being in place.
Crime
Enda Kenny promised to increase the Garda Force by 2,000 Gardaí. The result was 2,000 less Gardaí, 130 Garda Station closed and increased levels of rural crime.
Heating Allowances
Then there was the Labour Manifesto promise to invest in ending fuel poverty which causes unnecessary deaths of older people every winter. “However, Labour will also take immediate action to alleviate the risk of fuel poverty in the short term by reinvesting €40 million from the
carbon tax to alleviate fuel poverty, and by developing a national fuel
poverty strategy as set out in Labour’s Fuel Poverty and Energy
Conservation Bill.” Labour Party Manifesto 2011.
Instead, the heating allowances were cut by the Labour Leader
The Public are fed up of broken promises. They are taking the recent spate of promises from all the political parties with a large dose of salt.
The Door Steps say Don’t Believe Them and Don’t Let It Happen Again!
Seamus Healy TD
Tel : 087-2802199
08/02/2016
At 2pm today we march in Clonmel not just against the water charges but we march for change.
We march for the Right to:
– Have a health service which is fit for purpose.
– Education, including the restoration and increased provision of SNA’s, and an education which is truly free.
– Have gainful and decent employment which would provide dignity, respect and a living wage.
– Democratic Reform where citizens are at the heart of decision making.
– Housing, and to end homelessness and clearing of social housing waiting lists.
– Sustainable Energy, fighting climate change is not a ‘cost’ – it is a necessary strategy for human survival.
– Natural Resources. The assets of our nation were declared in the 1916 Proclamation as belonging to the citizens of Ireland, a Proclamation which
also pledged to cherish all the citizens of the state equally. The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) is one of the biggest threats to people’s ability to provide labour, social, and environmental protection and represents a proposed transfer of economic and political sovereignty from the Irish citizens to multi-national corporations.
– Equality, the right to equality encompasses social and economic rights which are implied and un-enumerated rights in our Constitution. These rights should be protected in legislation which will address the issues of poverty.
– Debt Justice, as past recklessness of financial speculation is imposing an intolerable burden on people’s future.
Just us at the Main Guard, Clonmel at 2pm.
Seamus Healy TD – 0872802199
This government is continuing to evict families from their homes.
In the Dáil last Thursday, I appealed to Minister Michael Noonan to order the banks he owns to withdraw repossession proceedings in light of the extreme housing emergency which exists.
The Minister refused. This means that the government has given the green light to the banks they own, to continue to evict families.
Court Orders for repossession of 47 primary residences were granted at Clonmel and Nenagh Circuit Courts in the first 3 quarters of 2015. A further 8 buy-to-lets which also house families were also repossessed. Banks are now seeking a further 97 repossession orders for dwellings in Tipperary, of which 32 are being sought by AIB, EBS and Permanent TSB which are owned by the Government through Michael Noonan (FG) Minister for Finance.
Minister Noonan claimed that the issue was being reasonably handled by the banks. Totally misrepresenting the situation, Mr Noonan quoted the 208 orders for repossessions for the whole country for Quarter 3,2015 as representative of the scale of the problem. COURTS ONLY SIT FOR 1 OF THE 3 MONTHS IN QUARTER 3!! The Court Service Figures for the whole country for Quarters 1 and 2 are 586 and 314 respectively.
The proposed Eviction of 97 Tipperary Families Must Be Stopped Now!
Senior Minister Alan Kelly (Lab) and Minister of State Hayes(FG) must now intervene at Cabinet to have a Housing Emergency Declared and all repossession applications withdrawn.
In particular they must force Minister Noonan to withdraw the repossession applications by the banks he owns.
This can be done by government decision and does not require legislation.
Seamus Healy T.D. 18/01/2016
Tel 087 2802199
Focus Ireland Spokesperson said:This is far from rent certainty.
However, we are highly concerned it will fail to stem the constant rising flow of 70 to 80 families becoming homeless in Dublin alone very month. —–The measures are far from a convincing response to the scale of the problems we are facing.
Kelly sought that rent increases be pegged to the cost of living. But Minister Noonan(FG) backed by 25 FG Landlord TDs, and American developers Kennedy Wilson forced him to bend the knee and retreat.
Landlords can only increase the rent every two years now rather than every year as before. Landlords must get three local examples of rents to justify an increase.!!! This will make almost no difference. In a situation where there is no competition between landlords due to shortage of accomodation, landlords can simply raise the rent by double the yearly increase every two years! OR, WORSE STILL, RAISE THE RENT BY A LARGE AMOUNT BEFORE THE LAW COMES IS PASED. The Dáil sat all night to bail out the Banks. But there is no urgency about protecting tenants!
