Evictions in Roscommon: Failure to tackle banks drives anger

Any reaction to the events in Roscommon, where violence followed what was described as a “heavy-handed” eviction last week, must be seen through the perspective of the widely held view that the majority of Celtic Tiger bankers who shackled this country to billions in transgenerational debt have not faced real personal sanction.

The ongoing tracker mortgage and pension scandals show that latitude remains unchallenged. It seems plausible, almost obligatory in a republic, to challenge laws that have no consequences for one set of citizens, but profound consequences for another group caught up in the same legacy maelstrom of Irish banking.

That view is strengthened by last week’s warning from the IMF that, a decade after our Wild West banking free-for-all, we are unprepared for the next financial collapse.

This is because the banks’ power — and hubris — remains absolute, as the evidence offered to the Oireachtas Finance Committee by one bank chief after another will confirm.

It may be an emotional argument, rather than a rational one, to conflate the two, but that unavoidable parallel is driving some of the red-raw emotions provoked by the Stokestown eviction.

If that argument holds water, so must another. It is a misuse of history to equate today’s events with the land-clearing eviction of tenant farmers before we won independence.

Those vulnerable, exploited, and landless people have no relationship to those who are, today, for whatever reason, unable to repay borrowings secured on what was their property.

Those transactions were freely entered into and the consequences of not meeting any loan agreement are well-established.

Though it is always tragic when a home is lost, that unhappy event can never occur unless a long, court-supervised process has been exhausted and failed.

That may seem unempathetic and cold, but those are the rules we have followed for generations — and until we change them, that will be the case, no matter how loudly our instincts to be compassionate, to make an exception just this once, unease us.

The violent vigilantism in Roscommon has no place in this society. That stands, irrespective of the origin of those employed to secure a property used as collateral in a failed transaction.

The response, especially online, where those men were described as ‘Tans’, suggests there is more in play than an eviction.

That reaction might have more credibility if it had come to the aid of, say, the owners of apartments in a Dublin complex facing a €3m bill — about €26,000 each — to resolve fire-safety issues that could close their homes.

How are the regulators who grievously failed those, and many other citizens, less open to criticism than banks evicting farmers? That reaction might be more plausible if it was echoed everytime a tenant is evicted so rents can be raised.

Almost every eviction is ugly and unfortunate, yet we are warned to expect many more.

This can only enrage and deepen division in a society drowning in a housing crisis.

This process highlights, once again, that there seems to be one law for the banks — and ineffective regulators — and another, far more onerous set of rules for everyone else.

No wonder right-wing populism is on the rise.