Keane Report shows Enda and Eamon are dastardly duo

I WAS in Dublin Castle last Saturday, watching the Taoiseach Enda Kenny and Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore fawning over former US president Bill Clinton like giddy interns basking in his momentary attention, yet they missed the key point of his brilliantly-delivered speech — that unless you decouple families from unsustainable, and unpayable, mortgage debt, you condemn this economy to a decades-long recession.

Their willful delusion reminded me of a Channel 4 documentary on the self-styled ‘superheroes of suburbia’ who claim to battle crime and injustice, but in reality live in a world of impotent disguise.

Inspired by civilian crime-fighter movie, Kick Ass, would-be public protectors have been slipping into spandex and patrolling streets all over Britain.

The sleepy Devon seaside resort of Torbay sleeps safer knowing that The Dark Spartan and his sidekick, The Black Void, are constantly on the lookout to right wrongs.

The Dark Spartan, also known as Will, dresses up as a warrior from ancient Greece, though one wielding an old police riot-shield, while comic book shop worker, The Black Void, shrouds his identity in mystery via a Spiderman mask and uses a cane.

The Black Void has pledged to restore civil order despite suffering from irritable bowel syndrome, which he says becomes inflamed in stressful situations when things turn “a little tasty.”

The dubious duo are part of the growing phenomenon of freelance crime-fighters who have banded together and grandly call themselves The Justice Union.

But despite months of effort and good intentions, The Dark Spartan and The Black Void have failed in their bid to combat any acts of injustice.

Indeed, Devon police say they are more worried about the pair harming themselves than getting into trouble with the local criminal classes.

Which brings us to Ireland’s very own would-be ‘superheroes of suburbia,’ Enda and Eamon — The Blueshirt Bluffer and The Red Baron — who won a general election largely by pledging, firstly, to make the casino capitalist cowboys pay for their crimes against society and, secondly, to end mortgage misery.

Despite months of effort and good intentions, The Bluffer and The Baron have failed to deliver on their promises to rescue mortgage slaves from their misery with the much-anticipated — and soon-to-be-forgotten-as-completely-inadequate — Keane Report.

But then, what would you expect from a committee stuffed full of civil service mandarins and banking officials rather than the people dealing with the sharp-end of the crisis on the ground?

Some people will qualify for social housing if they are turfed out of their homes, but other than that there is precious little else in the long-awaited document.

For the tens of thousands of families struggling on restructured mortgages, and the tens of thousands more about to slip over the edge into serious arrears, there is nothing.

Even the families who will be able to sell their houses to the bank, and continue to live in them as tenants, will be saddled with the debts resulting from the catastrophic collapse in prices.

Once again, the little people will be expected to pay while the bankers get off scot-free. What is urgently needed is an adoption of the US system, where if a mortgagee has to walk away from a property they do so without the remainder of the debts hanging over them for the rest of their lives.

The borrower and the lender both entered into the deal willingly and both need to take responsibility for their decisions.

Such debt write-down is not debt ‘forgiveness’ as home-buyers were not guilty of anything — except taking advantage of the huge temptations thrown their way by equally irresponsible banks.

Why is this country happy to pump €70bn into Nama to write off the loans of greedy speculators and reckless developers, but appalled at the idea of helping out ordinary families squeezed in the middle of society?

The argument that it punishes those people who did not get caught in the mortgage crisis is bogus, as, logically, such a refusal to give help to struggling families would see key elements of a civil society, like housing benefit and social security, removed as well because of a feeling that those who need such support are the architects of their own misfortune.

Also, while Fine Gael’s election pledge and programme-for-government commitment to boost mortgage relief by €166 a month, for people who bought in the boom, was never the best way to deal with the situation, it was a key plank in the party’s campaign and provoked a major opinion poll boost after it was announced — so for it to be jettisoned so casually is troubling.

The ‘superheroes of suburbia’ documentary also featured a would be crime-fighter from Stockton-on-Tees known as Noir — in reality he is called Kieran, and his well-intentioned efforts are hampered by panic attacks and nerves.

Kieran’s, sorry, Noir’s mum is scathing about his attitude, saying: “He needs to learn about the world.”

The same could easily be said for the Bluffer and Baron of this Government and the blinkered ‘experts’ group they allowed to dictate a mortgage policy that is also panicky, hampered by nerves and often missing the point completely.

Where’s the sense in crippling this country so that we can save and ‘own’ the banks when our leaders condemn us to still be slaves of the banks?

The Dark Spartan still dreams of making a difference, musing to the Channel 4 film crew: “If I could get inside and stop some massive crime boss or drug syndicate in Torbay that would be great,” over footage of him getting abused by drunks he was trying to help home, outside a Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet.

One man said to him: “You’re full of bullshit and dressed like an arse.”

Now, Enda and Eamon can afford to dress well, but the many families they have left mired in mortgage misery will no doubt agree with the bullshit analogy.