Mattie McGrath alleged that the eviction of the McGann family involved forged documents and called for urgent reform of the court service and land registry. He said three men are serving 15-year sentences linked to paperwork he describes as "grossly and completely wrong" and demanded those cases be reviewed.
Allegation of forged eviction documents
McGrath told the Dáil that the McGann family eviction in Roscommon was carried out without a valid court order and that a forged document was used. He said the eviction was carried out on behalf of KBC Bank by a group from the north and that the paperwork in the case was not proper for repossession.
Concerns about jailed men and sentences
He argued that three men are currently serving 15-year sentences arising from the disputed documents and called this an appalling injustice. McGrath compared the situation to historic miscarriages of justice and said the cases must be rectified if court orders prove invalid.
Failures in the land registry and court service
McGrath said the land registry and court service have failed the public, with documents and even commas not being properly checked. He reported that the former master of the High Court has worked with his group on irregularities in land registry and High Court paperwork.
Calls for legal and procedural reform
He urged legislation and reform to ensure all legal documents are proofread and legally effective, and to require proper registration and oversight of security agents. McGrath pressed for accountability from the former Taoiseach and the ministers he named, arguing people have been misled about what happened.
Local advocacy and wider consequences
McGrath recalled local interventions on behalf of families and said hundreds of families have lost businesses and suffered harm linked to flawed repossession paperwork. He said there are verified documents in his possession that must be addressed by the justice system.
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The amendment of the number of acts to facilitate an increased in the mandatory retirement age for uniformed public servants to 62 years, Gaudi especially, Minister, but much more of it is only vanish and veneer. I too have cases, and I have highlighted here dozens of times, about Pat Esmond and Pat O'Brien who lost their lives off healthy head, and Michael Kingston is helping out there too. No proper investigations here as well. So as I said, there's a lot of veneer with this here, amendments and typographical errors of amendments of other acts. But where's the reform in the justice system? And with the indulgence of Count Cullen, he might allow me, and he might not, but I don't know how I'm going to raise it, because it was the eviction of the McGann family in Roscommon. And I know now, I've put documents in my position, well verified, that there was no court order by KBC Bank. They hadn't a proper legal court order. And the same gang that went in the big and gather station and carried out an eviction, a gang from the north, on behalf of KBC Bank, acted outside the law. And there was a forged document that they had, and indeed, the former master of the High Court has done extensive work on this with our group here, in relation to land registry, and documents not being proper for repossessions. When are we going to tidy up that act? When are we going to insist that the former Taoiseach Radcliffe here, and Minister Flanagan, and Minister Dunham, have misled the people about this, what happened to that family? And there are three men in jail now, seven huge sentences, and they've been in a grievance rung. We have years here trying to correct the Birmingham Six and the Guildford Four, and God knows whatever else, not the jurisdictions, and we saw what happened there. But this is really, it's wrong, if the court order wasn't a valid court order. There's a fourth document, I'm led to believe, and that's not good enough. If banks, KBC Bank in particular, they're gone now, but there are a lot of, I had a lot of, Deputy Hilly Ray, Deputy Collins, Deputy Nolan, we went into the bank one time in defence of people, and the rest of the families who had no one to support them. There has to be legal documents, and the court service must be reformed, that we must ensure that every letter, every comma, every syllable in those documents are proofread and are effective. When our guarantee are being used, and when other agents, what they call them, security agents, with no registration, we've met the office in Torlis, and Tipperary Town, that are in charge of this. It's not happening, and this is an appalling injustice that has happened, where three men are serving a sentence, 15-year sentence, for something that, in the paperwork I have here, is grossly and completely wrong, and false, and that must be rectified by our court system. So where are we going to get legislation that's gone? And hundreds of families out there have lost businesses, many lives lost, and have suffered, and are still suffering, and the paperwork isn't right, and the land registry is completely and utterly failed us here, and the system is not. It's not up to date, and documents have been used when they're not correct in the land registry, and in this case a document is used, which was a forced high court summons, and that's only serious matter. Thank you.
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