A Traveller family with 13 children faces a second night of homelessness tonight following eviction from their mobile home by Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council yesterday.
Ms Bridget O'Brien, her husband John, their 11 children and two foster children were forced to leave their mobile home at the Rathmichael Road halting site near Loughlinstown in south Dublin when it was towed away by council officials with the assistance of gardaí yesterday morning.
Ms O'Brien said she is now sleeping in a car on the site, while her children have been split up and put in the care of relations.
The family moved to the site three months ago, buying the mobile home from a cousin for €4,000. Ms O'Brien said the sale included the halting bay. However, the council says the O'Briens have no entitlement to the site which is already earmarked for another family.
Until last November, the family had been living in a council estate in Bray, Co Wicklow, but felt compelled to move when a drug rehabilitation clinic opened in the area.
"We moved to Rathmichael because this is where I'm from and this is where my children are in school and all my family lives," said Ms O'Brien.
In December, Ms O'Brien was told by the council that she could not stay at the site because she had not been living within the Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown area, and other families were on a waiting list for the bay vacated by her cousin.
"They left existing accommodation in the Wicklow-Bray area, effectively making themselves homeless," said Ms Bernie O'Reilly, senior housing officer with the council.
"They were staying illegally on a temporary emergency halting site. They had no tenancy agreement with the council."
