Galway families herded like cattle with threat to lose their homes

Cramped conditions at Galway Courthouse this week – while 200 repossession cases were heard – have been described as “insensitive” and “torture” for homeowners. Banks were accused of ‘herding in’ mortgage defaulters from the city and county ‘like cattle’.

Protestors gathered outside the courthouse on Tuesday, when 109 cases were heard and again on Wednesday, when more than 80 more were heard.

They slammed conditions in Court Number 4 – usually used for Family Law cases and with seating for around a dozen people – as “a health and fire hazard”.

“We were appalled. The room where they’re held [the cases] is tiny, it only holds about twelve in total and that’s taken up by solicitors and the Registrar,” Marguerite Corbett of the Land League in Galway, told the Connacht Tribune.

“You have people already distressed because they’ve never been in court, and people were queuing down the hallway and stairs, unable to hear their case being called.

“It’s bad enough to be in there and be so fearful of the courts about losing your house, and then to be crammed in here like an underground train,” said Ms Corbett.

See full story in this week’s Connacht Tribune.