Fighting Social Injustice Through GDPR Class Actions

 

Educate

Empowering people to defend against unlawful, unfair public or private sector practises and corruption by showing how GDPR can protect their interests rights and freedoms.

Advocate

Riar Ceartais advocate for some of the most vulnerable in society by focusing on major issues of social injustice that affect many people.

Enforce

Where advocacy fails, Riar Ceartais use GDPR class action enforcement to address unlawful unfair public or private sector practises and corruption.

Impactful

Riar Ceartais drive impactful initiatives that provide meaningful support and resources for groups seeking justice, while championing systemic change to drive fairness and equality for all members of society, regardless of their background or circumstances.

The injustice keeps growing

Successive Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael governments have driven record social injustice

“Eviction rates not seen in Ireland since the 1850s”

Mortgages transferred unlawfully (est.)

Victims of unlawful mortgage transfers (est.)

People homeless

Children homeless

Eviction termination notices in 2025

%

Homeless increase since 2023 eviction ban

Vacant or derelict properties across Ireland

Houses crumbling from mica and pyrite across Ireland

%

of under 25's considering emigration due to cost of living

%

Increase in home heating oil prices since 2021

%

Increase in natural gas prices since 2021

%

Increase in electricity prices over past 10 years

Cost of household electricity over EU average

%

Cost of household electricity over EU average

%

Cost of petrol over EU average

%

Cost of diesel over EU average

GDPR Class Action Case Study

The unlawful transfer of mortgages to vulture funds devastates tens of thousands of families across Ireland.  Our mortgage class action page provide more details, but in short, GDPR requires lenders to obtain a borrowers freely given informed consent before it is lawful to transfer mortgages to vulture funds.  A more detailed description of the Riar Ceartais programme of unlawful mortgage transfer class actions can be found on the GDPR enforcement web page, in the GDPR training videos and in our 12/11/2025 letter to the Chair of the S&P Global Board of Directors.

Today, our mortgage class actions have approx. 200 members

  • holding over €94 million of uncollectable Irish mortgage debt that is expected to default,
  • owning €83 million of property protected by Riar Ceartais, and
  • seeking to recover ~€60 million compensation for damages suffered.

Riar Ceartais anticipate this will grow to 2,000 members

  • holding just under €1 billion of uncollectable Irish mortgage debt that is expected to default,
  • owning €800 million of property protected by Riar Ceartais, and
  • seeking to recover ~€600 million compensation for damages suffered.

But that is only 2,000 victims from a pool of over 339,143 mortgages which Riar Ceartais believe have been unlawfully transferred, or are transferring, relating to an estimated 488,000 Irish victims.

However the GDPR issues are not restricted to Irish originating Mortgaged Backed Securities (“MBS”) as the problem extends across the European Union, the broader European Economic Area and the United Kingdom. In fact, the non-consensual sale or transfer of personal debt to third parties such as credit card or personal loans are also affected.

Estimate value of Irish damages

Conservatively assuming just one property per residential mortgage, based on the €375,000 median price for an Irish dwelling purchased in the 12 months to August 2025, the value of Irish property relating to the 339,143 unlawfully transferred mortgages is approximately €127 billion. Exactly like what’s happening to members of our GDPR class actions, unlawful mortgage transfers to vulture funds effectively lock-in most victims to prevent them from selling up to cash in on record-high property prices. Based on the 2008 crash, it is reasonable to believe that victims of unlawful mortgage transfers will suffer similar damages of at least 50% of their property value (i.e., €63.5 billion) when GDPR non-compliance will likely spark the next MBS crash.  The cost of which the Irish State and its taxpayers must pick up.

However, those damages do not include

  • reputational damage from unlawful vulture fund adverts published online for the alleged purpose of laundering a victim’s property,
  • reputational damage from unlawful vulture fund proceedings issued to repossess and allegedly launder a victim’s property,
  • reputational damage from imprisoning victims lawfully defending their homes and property from unjust attack following the unlawful transfer of their mortgage,
  • generational trauma caused to families of countless victims driven to suicide by vulture funds,
  • MBS investor damages suffered through GDPR non-compliance triggering a 2008 scale global financial crash; the US financial impact alone from that crash is estimated at 2 trillion dollars.

Was your mortgage transferred unlawfully?

Complete the online application form and apply to join an unlawful mortgage transfer class action.