I often wonder whether, were it not for the capricious cruelty of various absentee landlords in the 18th and 19th centuries in Ireland, especially during the famine, would this country have ever pursued its independence at the beginning of the 20th. The fear of the eviction resides deep in the Irish psyche, and it was notable that, during the national civil war about whether to commemorate the Royal Irish Constabulary a few years ago, many of those who objected brought up the role of the Peelers in supporting brutal and unjust evictions during the famine, and at other times. In parts of Ireland, even to this day, there is abiding cultural resistance to an eviction. For years, communities would shun somebody who bought or occupied a home that had been repossessed, from which a family had been evicted.
This sense of solidarity with the downtrodden and the oppressed runs deep in our politics, still. On balance, it is a thing to be proud of: We are a very self-consciously fair minded people, and that fair-mindedness extends far from housing, and goes a long way, I think, to explaining our unusual tolerance, compared to other EU countries, for immigration.
But it also means, frankly, that we have an unfortunately high tolerance for people taking the piss:
Local authorities across the State are owed almost €105 million in unpaid rent, with 285 social housing tenants having arrears in excess of €20,000 each, new figures show.
A number of councils have indicated they have taken, or will take, legal action on the issue due to the level of rent arrears.
Figures compiled by The Irish Times show that across all of the 31 local authorities €104,770,709 is overdue in rent from council tenants.
Because of the history I wrote about above, no Irish county council is going to evict a person who does not pay their rent. The vast majority of council tenants pay their rent anyway, because they are responsible citizens. Some, though, just do not. And, as the figures make clear, they get away with it.
These people make fools of everybody else. They make fools of those who do pay their rent, because, really, why should they? They also make fools of the people who would pay their rent if offered a council house, but who cannot get a council house because there are maybe a thousand council houses occupied by people who are not paying for them. They make fools out of taxpayers who provide the council houses, and all the social welfare payments that often accompany those houses.
It is worth thinking about this, by the way, in terms of tax evasion: The tax authorities are, we all know, a ferocious and implacable opponent of those who do not pay their way. If you’re a small business owner and you either make a mistake on your taxes, or try some funny business, you will find yourself fined. And perhaps prosecuted. And of course, you will have your name published for the media and everyone else to see, so that you can be publicly shamed for a freeloader. There is no tolerance, of any kind, for those who do not pay their way. We all remember, I think, the penalty for under-declaring VAT on Garlic. Fear is the Revenue’s weapon of compliance, and the public scorn for perceived or alleged freeloaders when it comes to tax is immeasurable.
But the public scorn for freeloaders who do not pay their council house rent is almost non-existent. Why is that?
Where is the list of serial rent defaulters? Where are the fines, and the prosecutions? Where, indeed, are the dreaded evictions?
The truth is, in Ireland, that often if you just brass it out, and have no shame at all, you’ll be fine. That’s one reason why some of our most successful crooks have been politicians. Michael Lowry, for example, is a man entirely free of shame. That’s his biggest asset. And the voters of my constituency have rewarded him for it for years. Heck, they basically admire him for it.
No, in Ireland, the fools are those with a sense of shame. The people who pay all their taxes, and their rents, and hold up their end of the bargain. Because, as we see again here, take the piss, and you’ll be grand.