Homeless mother and children ‘at crisis point’, court hears

A legal action by a mother and her two young children over Kildare County Council's refusal to provide them with emergency homeless accommodation will return to the High Court next week.

The mother, from Co Kildare, said she is “in a desperate situation and my family is at crisis point”.

“I have nowhere to sleep with my children and I have exhausted the assistance and goodwill of family and friends,” she said in court documents.

“I have no car to get around or sleep in and within a matter of days I will be forced to sleep rough with two extremely young children.”

She feared the “detrimental” effect on the health of her children, aged one and two and already with ailments, if the family has to sleep rough.

“I am so exhausted and worried about my children that I cannot sleep at night and in a heightened state of anxiety all the time.”

Friends and family

Since the woman’s relationship with the father of one of her children broke up last October, she and the children have stayed for days here and there with various friends and family but none of those arrangements were suitable, she said.

In one situation, the family all slept on a couch in the two-bed apartment of a friend and her two children.

The family, represented by Teresa Blake SC and Alan Brady, instructed by Mercy Law, Dublin, cannot be named for legal reasons.

In their judicial review, they want orders quashing the council’s refusal of accommodation and directing it to reconsider their application.

It is alleged the refusal is unlawful.

The mother went to the council’s offices on January 6th, 7th and 8th seeking emergency accommodation but was told on January 8th it was not considered “appropriate to provide emergency accommodation at this time”.

It is claimed no reasons were given and the failure to provide them with somewhere to stay breaches the council’s own accommodation scheme and the family’s constitutional rights.

After the January 8th refusal, the family went to Dublin where Dublin City Council gave them three-nights' emergency homeless accommodation on January 8th, 9th and 10th. After that, she again sought to rely on family and friends but such arrangements were very difficult and unsustainable, she said.

On January 19th, Kildare council again refused her emergency homeless accommodation leaving her “at crisis point”.

The proceedings have been adjourned to February 4th by High Court Deputy Master Angela Denning to allow the council file its documents responding to the woman’s claims.