'New Land League' aims to turn back tide of family evictions

[Tony Gosling]

'New Land League' aims to turn back tide of family evictions

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/new-land-league-aims-to-turn-back-tide-of-family-evictions-30205725.html
ALLISON BRAY – PUBLISHED 22 APRIL 2014 02:30 AM

HUNDREDS of people have met to form a protest 
organisation aimed at preventing the evictions of residents from their homes.

About 350 members of a group called the 'New Land 
League' arrived at Tommy Toughers Bar in Nass, Co 
Kildare, for its inaugural meeting.
One of their missions is to show up en masse when 
a family or other homeowner is being threatened 
with eviction through a bank's repossession of their home or other property.
The group has already intervened in the evictions 
of families from their homes in Meath and 
Kildare, as well as in 
<http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/http://searchtopics.independent.ie/topic/Dublin,_Ireland>Dublin 
and Galway, where the New Land League's presence 
has been enough to stop the eviction from taking place.

PROPERTIES
Organiser Jerry Beades (55), from Drumcondra, 
north Dublin, said the New Land League would 
intervene and mount peaceful pickets at any 
family home that was being repossessed by the banks.
"How many tens of thousands of families are 
behind in their mortgage repayments with the banks?" he asked.
"Are they going to evict them all? It's 
impossible. We are trying to impress upon them 
that is just impossible. They have to come up 
with meaningful and realistic solutions," he said.
He said the turnout yesterday was phenomenal. "We 
expected a few hundred people but there were 350," he said.
People from as far afield as Donegal, Roscommon, 
Galway, Cork and Tipperary, and from all walks of 
life, from schoolteachers and gardai to retired 
Army officers, attended the meeting, he said.
What they share is a sense of anger over the 
financial chaos that they, their neighbours and 
family now find themselves in due to the actions 
and inactions of Government and financial 
institutions since the collapse of the economy, he said.
"A lot of people are in all sorts of destitution 
and we aim to be a voice of the people," he said.
The gathering was not a political meeting but a 
rallying cry for action by ordinary people, he said.

POLITICIANS
"People are just sick to the teeth of the 
existing politicians who don't know what's going 
on," he said. "Our aim is to wake people up."
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