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INDEPENDENT TD MATTIE McGrath has attacked the Courts Service and Gardaí for “locking out” families from courts where a home repossession case is being heard.
The outspoken deputy for Tipperary South also criticised Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald for, in his view, comparing those who attend and demonstrate at such cases to “pseudo-criminals.”
McGrath recently spoke in the Dáil about alleged incidents in Waterford, Dublin, and Trim, Co Meath where he claimed “the courts have locked out family members, colleagues and other supporters in cases where the banks are trying to repossess people’s homes.”
In relation to an incident on 29 September in Waterford, he claimed:
When family members and friends tried to go in yesterday they were locked out and treated like criminals.
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‘Major security threats’
In a letter to the McGrath, Fitzgerald said action was taken by court staff on 29 September because:
An Garda Síochána had advised of a credible threat to the organisation of courts on that day.
It is understood that the threat had the potential to be damaging to the court, Courts Service staff and the judiciary.
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As a result, the minister said, extra security was laid on outside the court in Waterford on that day, but Gardaí were given the names of those involved in cases that day, to ensure they got access to the court.
These included: every litigant on each list, their legal representatives, children in need of the court’s protection, their family or others who may have been accompanying them, [etc...]
In general, Fitzgerald wrote, “An Garda Síochána provide assistance to the Court where there is disorder or a major security threat.”
In his statement yesterday, however, McGrath objected to her language, which he said was “more suited to counter-terrorism operations and not to families driven to desperation…”
The Minister, in her reply to me,…characterises organisations like the New Land League as pseudo-criminal groupings.
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