Dublin Corporation has said that it is "cracking down" on tenants involved in "anti-social behaviour" and increasing evictions. A total of 28 people have been evicted in the past year, and officials have promised stronger action over the next 12 months.
The corporation's statement came after a wheelchair-bound woman in her 50s was given a three-month stay of execution by the President of the Circuit Court against a corporation eviction notice.
Mr Justice Sheridan told Ms Margaret Whitley, of Lorcan O'Toole Court, Crumlin, that under the 1966 Housing Act the corporation did not have to give the court a reason or present any evidence against her. He said this was pretty harsh, but it was a law which had been upheld as constitutional by the Supreme Court.
The judge said Ms Whitley was not being put out of her flat for non-payment of rent. She said in court that she did not know why she was being evicted.
Although the corporation did not comment officially, a senior official said that Ms Whitley was living with her two grown-up sons in a one-bedroom flat meant for a single senior citizen. He said there had been numerous complaints from neighbours about noise and other "anti-social behaviour" by the sons.
The official said that for many years the corporation had been unable to get witnesses to testify in court to such behaviour. Three years ago it had begun to use Section 62 of the Housing Act, which allowed it to repossess a flat or house in the interests of good estate management. He added: "Once we're satisfied that people are engaged in anti-social behaviour, we seek repossession. It's the only solution to a horrendous litany of problems."
The official said that the corporation would not normally rehouse people if anti-social behaviour was involved.
Ms Whitley had not arrived home by early yesterday evening. However, her son, Michael (34), admitted that he and his brother had been living in the flat for several months in contravention of the conditions of his mother's tenancy.
He said that the family had been evicted once from a flat in Ballymun for non-payment of rent and had left another Ballymun flat voluntarily because of the number of people coming there to look for drugs. His mother was on a morphine-based medication for pain in her feet resulting from her having been run over by a bus when she was a teenager.
He said that he had been living in his mother's flat since he came out of prison in October after serving a sentence for shop-lifting. He had been using heroin for 14 years up to then, but had been on a methadone maintenance programme since his release.