A COUPLE whose repossessed home was stripped clean by thieves have warned of measures needed to maintain and secure properties after courts hand them over to lenders.

A HEARTBROKEN couple whose bungalow was recently repossessed have described the horror of discovering their former home was ransacked and gutted.

TWO family homes were among the seven properties repossessed at the High Court yesterday.

AN ELDERLY father appeared before the High Court yesterday to plead for more time to allow his daughter, who is going through a marriage break-up, to make mortgage repayments to avoid having her house repossessed.

THE Government has been urged to take a stake in the mounting mortgages being carried by ten of thousands of debt-ridden borrowers in a “NAMA for the people” style initiative.

PATRICIA and John Burnett are the real face of the repossession crisis facing Ireland’s debt-ridden home owners.

An avalanche of home repossession cases is expected to come down on the courts this year, a senior High Court official declared today.

A MAN saddled with a pub he cannot sell faces losing the home he shares with his young daughter, the High Court heard yesterday.

THE High Court is to extend its hearings for applications by banks and building societies to repossess the property of loan defaulters because of the growing number of cases coming before the courts.

A HIGH Court judge has criticised a mortgage company for seeking home repossessions after careless lending.

SOME slight semblance of normality returned to the Killakee estate in Firhouse yesterday as local people tried to make sense of the tragedy that has struck their neighbourhood over the past few days.

A MOTHER found dead beside the battered bodies of her two young sons is believed to have killed the children before taking her own life.

02 Ireland has appointed Paul Whelan as its new chief financial officer.

FINANCIAL services group IFG yesterday signalled its painful restructuring was at an end as it reported a €1.7 million profit last year after a €32.8m loss in 2002.

IFG Group has sold 50% of its mortgage business to GE Capital for €13.3m.

Financial services group IFG has announced it is to sell 50% of its IFG Mortgages operation to GE Capital Woodchester for €13.3m.

A NEW low-rate personal loan from An Post aims to undercut the main banks’ offerings by several percentage points. One Direct, the profitable financial wing of An Post is introducing a new personal loan with an annualised percentage rate (APR) of 7.75%.