"Henry McDonald in Dublin – guardian.co.uk, Friday 18 November 2011 19.48 GMT"
"Ireland’s IMF bailout after the irresponsible bank lending of the ‘Celtic Tiger’ years has provoked intense resentment, as seen in this Dublin graffiti. Now the banks face organised opposition from New Beginning."
"It’s been a tough time to be Irish. The boom years are a distant memory and now there’s just austerity and a long haul back to recovery for a nation crippled by the reckless lending of its banks."
"But, a year after the country was forced to call in the International Monetary Fund (IMF), there is a sign that the people are fighting back and targeting the hated lenders with the “nuclear option” of a mortgage strike."
"Ross Maguire is the co-founder of New Beginning, a new de-facto trade union for Irish mortgage holders and those in debt distress with banks, which aims to recruit 10,000 members in a movement that has strong parallels with the Occupy protests that have swept through scores of countries."
“The nuclear weapon is for borrowers acting in concert and to say that unless proper and sustainable solutions are put in place which are fair and reasonable, then we should not continue to pay under these current conditions,” he says. So does this mean a “mortgage strike” under the New Beginning banner similar to the “rent and rates strike” by nationalists in Northern Ireland protesting against internment without trial in 1971?"
“It is radical but it is where we are going if things don’t change. It’s the last option but it is better that people like us have control over it because the danger is that if that kind of people power was misdirected it could wreck the financial system. New Beginning doesn’t want to smash the financial system; we merely want to reform it and re-balance power between banks and borrowers.”
"With more than €70bn (£60bn) of taxpayers’ money already transferred into the banks to save them from collapse and public fury intensifying after the banks refused to pass on a cut in interest rates by the European Central Bank two weeks ago, Irish people are bracing to pay a further price for the bailout. Next month the Fine Gael-Labour coalition will introduce yet another austerity budget aimed at driving down Ireland’s national debt and satisfying the IMF that the government is getting the nation’s finances in order." Forts.
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