Westmeath land league launch this weekend

The National Land League is to launch a Westmeath branch with an event at The Greville Arms Hotel in Mullingar on Saturday February 7 (2.30pm).

A spokeswoman for the organisation said: “The National Land League, reformed to end the tyranny of evictions, has been setting up local chapters nationwide over the last six months, and the Westmeath Land League will stand with local homeowners, business people and farmers who are facing repossession or receivers.”

She said the banks are planning up to 50,000 repossession actions this year, and a similar number already in progress, so hundreds of thousands of people could be left homeless by the end of this year.

“In terms of Westmeath Land League strategy, we make every effort to assist people in correspondence with lending institutions, and court cases where banks seek orders for possession of the family home or farm. To this end we operate drop-in clinics, workshops, and regular support meetings.

“We understand addressing people’s immediate administrative needs alone will not solve the emergency that is mass mortgage arrears. We understand that this will only help by neutralising the courts system while we build a nationwide campaign strong enough to influence legislative changes and an across the board, personal write down of debt for every homeowner in the country.

“If homeowners, farmers and small business people are to be freed of the anxiety and stresses of unmeetable debt, if the tills of our small and medium enterprises are to ring once again, then a write-down across the board must occur.”