Extent of local mortgage arrears crisis laid bare

The true face of middle-income Ireland’s mortgage trauma has been revealed in new figures which show that 100 'civil bills for ejectment’ of Meath homeowners are listed at Trim County Registrar’s Court every month.
The number of applications for repossession in the county was described this week as “a frightening and horrific avalanche affecting friends, neighbours and relations of many Meath people” by Senator Thomas Byrne.
On Monday this week, 91 cases were listed before the Trim court with mortgage lenders as the applicants.
The Fianna Fail senator, a qualified solicitor who revealed the figures, said it can be assumed that the vast majority, if not all, are 'ejectment’ civil bills which is court-speak for repossession applications.
And he was backed up by national lobbying organisation, New Beginning, which said that it is seeing a very big increase in applications for repossession all over the country, including in Meath.
Organisation co-founder, barrister Ross Maguire, pleaded with people in mortgage difficulty to get in touch with organisations like his own trying to work out ways of freeing people from unmanageable debt.
Senator Byrne condemned the “silence that is reigning in Meath on this issue”. He said that people were being handed lip service and platitudes about keeping them in their home. He said that troubled homeowners were being left to their fate, with many of those listed at Trim coming before the registrar’s court without any legal representation.
“This is deeply worrying. Families are often suffering in silence while the bank-driven legal process rumbles on. This is a social crisis, only beginning, unlike no other,” said Senator Byrne.
“Even more frighteningly, the long repossession list in Trim does not include Meath residents whose cases may be before the High Court in Dublin,” he added, accusing the government and policy-makers of not doing enough to keep people in their homes.