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Sasko Lazarov/Photocall Ireland

'The banks weren't showing compassion, they were waiting for an increase in property prices'

It has been predicted that the number of home repossessions will grow significantly.

THE IRISH MORTGAGE Holders Organisation (IMHO) is predicting as many as 25,000 home repossessions will take place over the next two years.

CEO David Hall made the prediction in response to figures published today by The Irish Times, revealing that banks had 7,101 bills for repossessions lodged in Irish courts.

In June last year, bills were lodged for more than 1,600 homes in just one month.

Hall told RTÉ’s Morning Ireland the figures appear ‘startling’, but he didn’t find them surprising, and they could grow significantly over the coming months.

He claimed that the recent rise in the number of home repossessions wasn’t due to ‘any compassion shown by banks’.

“Over the last couple of years, banks have sat back, said a few prayers, held hands, and their dreams and wishes have come true,” Hall said.

Property prices have increased, and for every percentage point of an increase in the property market, it adds a number of million, if not €20 million, to the bank’s balance sheets.

Hall added that repossessed homes will now be of a much higher value.

He noted that most of those who are having their homes repossessed lived in normal houses, and noted that some will now face going on the housing list and social welfare payments.

The process is long and uncertain, he said, with many not understanding how exactly the court proceedings takes place.

The number of mortgage accounts for principal dwelling houses in arrears fell in Q4 2014, according to figures published by the Central Bank.

A total of 110,366 (14.5%) of accounts were in arrears at end-Q4, a decline of 6.4%.

Read: Courts ‘cannot cope’ with amount of home repossessions >

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    Mute AnthonyK
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    Oct 1st 2024, 1:52 PM

    A precedence has been set with this. Well meaning as it is. Will not other survivors of state ineffectiveness want something similar.

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    Mute ben wu
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    Oct 1st 2024, 2:02 PM

    @AnthonyK: At a risk of sounding controversial, I think this should have been dealt with under some form of compensation or redress rather than some blanket thing.
    That it doesn’t preclude future settlements is an odd thing.
    However, I’m more onboard with the Gov actually doing something rather than nothing for those people it’s completely failed.

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    Mute Niall English
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    Oct 1st 2024, 2:00 PM

    maybe hold tony hoolahan to account? no, no, that would be too much to expect of this snide government.

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    Mute Jason Memail
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    Oct 1st 2024, 2:03 PM

    @Niall English: What specifically should he be held to account for?

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    Mute ....
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    Oct 1st 2024, 2:07 PM

    Are they going to do this for all individuals who have been failed by the state (and how is that defined)? There’s plenty of people who have suffered, including Stardust victims, people who can’t get or afford homes.

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    Mute Jason Memail
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    Oct 1st 2024, 2:06 PM

    The amount of misinformation out there around what happened with cervical check is mind-blowing. The way some people talk you’d swear that the testing service actually gave people cancer.

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    Mute Brian D'Arcy
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    Oct 1st 2024, 4:58 PM

    @Jason Memail: Quite the opposite, it didn’t tell them that they had cancer so they didn’t receive the treatment they needed, in a nutshell

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    Mute Jason Memail
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    Oct 2nd 2024, 12:37 AM

    @Brian D’Arcy: That’s absolutely false, and part of the misinformation that’s common on this subject. 1) These women received tests from cervical check which told them that cancer cells were not present. 2) These women subsequently developed cancer, and a review of their original tests was carried out. 3) The reviews showed that the earlier tests missed what may have been cancerous cells, with these reviews aided by the fact that the reviewers knew what they were looking for, since the patients had developed cancer.

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    Mute Jason Memail
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    Oct 2nd 2024, 12:37 AM

    @Jason Memail: 4) The decision was made, and this is the real crux of the issue, not to go back and tell those women that the earlier tests missed the potentially cancerous cells, mainly because what good would it do? They now had cancer and knowing an earlier test missed it wouldn’t change that. 5) Overall, the suggestion that cervical check didn’t tell these people they had cancer is demonstrably false, because the only reason the reviews were carried out on the initial tests is because they had cancer, which they knew about. 6) Going back and checking original tests when something like this happens is standard practice, and the right thing to do in order to improve future testing, but

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    Mute Jason Memail
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    Oct 2nd 2024, 12:37 AM

    @Jason Memail: 7) you can argue whether or not it was the right decision not to inform people about what the earlier tests missed, but it would not and could not have changed the fact that they now, sadly, had cancer, and 8) Knowing that an earlier test missed something could not have allowed them to start treatment earlier, because it’s in the oast. 9) If you want to know the specifics of it, I’d suggest checking out care2much on Twitter, who has written some incredibly detailed threads on the subject.

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    Mute silvery moon
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    Oct 1st 2024, 4:59 PM

    While this is welcome and like one commentor said that it should have been done with compensation.
    As a survivor of the industrial state/religious run institutions we never got compensation we were give an “Award” as if we won something, we cannot get enhanced medical cards that the survivors from the mother and baby home were afforded, we cannot get a contributary pension even though we had to work in these institutions, we now get another slap in the face by being excluded from theses tax benefits. I live in a council house and am grateful for that, I live with my ill husband and disabled totally dependant 23 year old son was told that I can purchase the house for a minimum of between 60 and 80 thousand euro, cannot get a mortgage as my husband is 70 as the cut off is 69 and we’ve have no where to go to help buy the house so our disabled son would have a roof over his head if anything happened to us.

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