Government politicians and advisers will no doubt have enjoyed some down time over the Easter break. They will have savoured their recent bounce in the polls. The shrewder among them will, however, have also cast their minds to political banana skins underfoot.
Notwithstanding the fine weather (meteorologically and politically), they will have sought to identify those issues which could potentially knock the Government off the course of its political recovery.
Among those is the Irish Water controversy. It hasn’t gone away, of course, but one gets a sense the Government has already absorbed the full political impact of the water charges issue. Their recovery in the polls suggests that, whatever about those voting for left-wing parties or Independents, the anger over water charges among those who vote or might vote for Fine Gael or Labour has abated.
There are other issues that may pose new threats to the support of the Government parties between now and the general election, however. The political risks associated with home repossessions is one of the most significant issues.
This newspaper reported last month that more than 7,000 repossession proceedings filed by the banks were before the courts. The banks say – and even the Taoiseach has repeated – that the large majority of these are tactical andare being progressed to get defaulters to engage with the banks.
If this sounds familiar it is because this was the line the banks took when they first wrote to thousands of homeowners in arrears, threatening repossession proceedings, more than 18 months ago.
In September 2012, for example, after his bank had sent out thousands of computer-generated letters to mortgage defaulters along these lines, Bank of Ireland chief executive Richie Boucher told the Oireachtas Committee on Finance that while the bank had threatened legal proceedings he did not see the bank “getting into repossession territory”. The legal threats were intended, he then said, to get customers “to talk to their bank”.
Many of these proceedings are now at the judgment stage. Indeed, the circuit courts in some counties have prepared special listings to deal with the volume of these applications. In most cases the homeowners will formally consent to the repossession orders – although of course they do so under obvious pressure.
Large-scale evictions
When the banks obtain hundreds or thousands of such orders for possession without consent and have to embark on large-scale evictions it could get very dramatic politically.
It may be unclear precisely how many such evictions are on the cards but there can be no underestimating the potential for this issue not only to cause discomfort for the Government but also to give rise to physical disturbance on the streets. One of the reasons the water charges controversy was so potent was because the installation of water meters provided a focal point for anger or protest on the ground.
The events at the O’Donnell family’s luxury mansion at Gorse Hill in Killiney last month may have descended into entertaining farce but even before then it had attracted inordinate media coverage. Imagine, therefore, the potency which evictions or repossessions of more deserving homeowners in more modest communities are likely to have. If even a handful of such repossessions become focal points for community anger with attendant national media attention then their political impact could be combustible.
Some sectors of the electorate, including those who have no mortgage or who managed to keep up repayments throughout the economic crisis, may have little sympathy for those facing eviction.
Most voters, however, will empathise with their plight. Tens of thousands who have had to default on their mortgages during the crisis but have managed more recently to resume repayments or restructure their mortgages will have a sense of “There but for the grace of God go I.” The public empathy for those losing homes will of course be overlaid with the inherited instinctive Irish opposition to evictions.
I
nsolvency law reform Government backbenchers already recognise the potential impact of this issue. That is why deputies with their ear to the ground, such as
Labour’s Willie Penrose in Westmeath, have been proposing further reforms in insolvency law and why his unusual step of preparing a Private Members’ Bill on the matter won the overwhelming support of the Labour parliamentary party.
It is why the Fianna Fáil leader, Micheál Martin, and his finance spokesman, Michael McGrath, have repeatedly raised this issue in Private Members’ time and in questions to the Taoiseach.
It is also why three weeks ago the Taoiseach promised that further proposals to address the threat of home repossessions would be published this month.
All eyes will be on the Government efforts in this regard when normal politics resumes next week.
Twitter: @NoelWhelan