Protests, cash and models at Allsop fire sale

PATRICK GRANT was yesterday dressed like the enemy.

A former shopkeeper, he stood outside the Allsop Space auction of distressed properties in the Shelbourne Hotel looking like he should be selling the houses. Instead, he was protesting.

Nattily attired in pinstripe suit, shirt and tie, topped with black coat, he said: “I wanted to show that I was a successful businessman and that this could happen to anyone inside there today.”

“This” was the closure of his business due to the recession, the lack of social welfare payments because he had been self-employed, and the fact that “there is no Christmas this year”.

Patrick said he took out a mortgage of €260,000 in 2008, a decision he has come to regret. “It has taken away any ambition I had in life,” he said, revealing that he is 13 months in arrears.

He said Christmas would consist of his sisters bringing around some food for him on December 25.

Patrick is involved in the People’s Association Watchdog and was one of more than half-a-dozen protesters outside yesterday’s auction, along with people representing groups such as Irish Homeowners Unite and the Defend Our Homes League.

Even a member of Occupy Galway was present, along with a French TV crew that lunged at anyone coming out the doors, asking if they had bagged a bargain.

By the time proceedings got underway at 11.15am, the room was full, with repeat visitors now used to the urbane patter of auctioneer Gary Murphy and his black-clad Allsopian women and men dotted around the room.

Once again, more than 100 repossessed properties went under the hammer, ranging from a three-bedroom apartment in Clonakilty that sold for €62,000 to a retail unit on Dublin’s Haddington Road that went for €455,000.

Not every property was shifted: a five-bedroom Connemara cottage and a second-floor apartment in Dublin’s Blackrock failed to sell, but by the end of the bidding, €11.8 million had been raised.

The cheapest deal of the day was €15,000 for a one-acre site at Inchigeela near Macroom, while the cheapest bricks and mortar was a two-bed, mid-terrace house in Ballinrobe, Co Mayo, for €25,000.

Most expensive was 174, Pembroke Road, Ballsbridge, home to two restaurants, which sold for €630,000.

Outside, Mark Geoghegan, a homeowner from Co Westmeath, was holding his own protest sign, in support of the Anti-Eviction League. He said the auction was “a fire sale, leeching off another person’s misery”.

“I am not affected by [house repossession] but who knows in a year or two?” he said, adding that he believed the Government had failed to address the issue despite pre-election promises to do so.

NAMA should be at the helm of a new social housing scheme, utilising vacant housing stock, he said. “All anybody is looking for is decency.”

As he spoke there was further proof on the opposite side of the street that commerce has not died, despite the downturn.

A confectionery company decided to piggyback on the auction. Miss Universe Ireland Aoife Hannon posed with a distinctly cardboard-looking mini-house advertising Broderick Brothers’ cakes and confectionery.

Maybe if it goes unsold it will be listed at the next Allsop auction, due to be held in March — another notch on the block, a little bit more wear and tear on the gavel.