The Irish political establishment are rallying behind the KBC bank’s eviction of a family in Strokestown. They are shocked by the level of public support for the family and are trying to divert attention from the central issue.
Last Tuesday week, a private security company engaged in a violent attack on elderly people who were ordered to leave their house.
They punched, kicked and pulled people by the ears yet nothing was done to stop them. Instead the Gardai closed off a road to facilitate the eviction.
The security firm involved is GS Agencies and it is run by an ex British soldier who served with the Ulster Defence Regiment. He has been named by the Irish Mirror as Ian Gordon.
No condemnation of their actions was issued by the Irish establishment. RTE never reported on the incident. The Irish Independent did not express shock and outrage about what happened.
Yet after the burning of vehicles and a retaliation attack, the full force of the state propaganda machine has been deployed to demonise the family involved.
Every day brings a litany of leaks about their unpaid taxes; their debts and their failure to adhere to instructions from a local sheriff.
Yet while the details of their lives are spread across the media, there is a silence about the KBC bank.
No detail has emerged about how they sold off the debt to Cabot Financial Ireland, a US vulture fund. We have not been told how much of a discount was given for the hand-over. We certainly won’t be told how much tax Cabot will pay on the profits made.
The reason is that the Irish establishment want to step up the number of evictions. For many years a legal loophole prevented them from moving quickly, but they subsequently changed the law to increase the pace of evictions.
To carry out that programme, they will need to rely on private security thugs to so that they can maintain a fiction that Gardai do not involve themselves in ‘civil matters’.
Just last week Solidarity People Before Profit brought a bill to the Dail to prevent unnecessary evictions.
Fine Gael tried to vote it down – which is hardly surprising because one in three of their TDs are landlords.