Woman makes horseback protest

A Tipperary woman has travelled to Dublin on horseback to highlight the difficulties faced by people who owe a lot of money to banks.

Margaret Hanrahan said she left home on Saturday at 3pm and arrived at the gates of Leinster House at 6am, using three different horses.

She said she owed €1.2 million to ACC Bank and claimed the bank had sought to repossess parcels of her land at Burncourt near Cahir, Co Tipperary.

A spokeswoman for ACC Bank said the bank did not comment on individual cases.

Ms Hanrahan admitted she had borrowed during the boom years to extend an equestrian centre but ran into financial difficulties.

Ms Hanrahan accepted she owed the money and had no problem repaying it back but was protesting at the timescale suggested by the bank.

"My thing is about the fastness and the swiftness of the receiver coming into me," she said. "They have ploughed 30 acres and 85 acres to leave me with not one ounce of grass. It's like leaving a baby without milk, because I've 28 horses of my own."

Asked if she could sell the horses, she said there was no market for them now. "It's like asking me to give away my child."

Ms Hanrahan said she hoped the Government would intervene to help people in situations like hers. "The fear is the killer. We're crippled in this country with fear…Anyone that's in my situation should come out and talk about it, relieve the tension."

"It's not worth a heart attack. And I'm not going away from my problem. I'm going to stick with my problem. I've never run away from anything in my life and I'm not going to run away from it now."