‘The baby could get pneumonia here, it gets so cold’

Elizabeth (27) and Tom (23) Moorehouse brought their first baby home just before Christmas. Kathleen, born on December 11th last, shares a caravan with her parents on an "unofficial" Traveller site just off the Greystones Road, outside Bray, Co Wicklow.

Also living on the site, beside Bray Golf Club, is her grandmother Kathleen (54) who has lived here for 32 years, and her partner William (72).

The site has one cold-water tap, a diesel generator and a portable toilet which Wicklow County Council cleans once a week. There are no lights on the site. The ground is broken and pot-holed in parts, muddy in others, with pools of water.

Tom has tried to brighten the site over the years, building a grotto and decorating the walls with hanging baskets, flowerpots and figurines.

“This is our home and we want to stay here, together as a family, but we’re very worried about the baby,” he says. “We need basic facilities and somewhere warm. We have nowhere to wash clothes, nowhere to have a bath or a shower.”

Rotting floors

It’s a cold morning, and their caravan is very cold inside. Cupboard doors are wet to touch, parts of the floor are rotting. The front door does not shut tight, allowing water in. They have a gas heater in the living area but none in the bedroom.

“We sleep here,” says Tom, gesturing to a sofa, “because we have heat in here.”

They worry about a 35-foot tree, overhanging their van. “Branches have been falling onto the roof. I am very concerned if it would fall on the van. I could try to cut it down, but I’m not professional. It might fall the wrong way.”

Elizabeth has been staying intermittently with her mother in Tallaght, since Kathleen’s birth. “The baby could get pneumonia here. It gets so cold you just have to stay in bed all day.”

Tom divides his time between the site and Tallaght, saying the house in Tallaght is overcrowded. He also wants to stay near his mother Kathleen, who has severe depression following the suicides of two of her other sons on the site – Dinny (30) four years ago and Joe (25) five months ago.

Kathleen becomes tearful when talking about Joe. The van in which she sleeps is damaged with green mildew inside and out. She says she makes weekly repayments of €20 a week to the council, which gave her a loan to buy the van from an approved supplier.

Her partner William, who sleeps in another van, also suffers from depression.

Land ownership

“We’d love a chalet, like a cabin, where we could have a shower and a washing machine, and somewhere warm to sit. I asked the council about that and they said they couldn’t build anything because they don’t know who owns the land.”

The family may be entitled to claim adverse possession of the land, having lived there continuously for more than 12 years. Tom says they have not investigated this.

Unable to read or write, he says he has been to adult literacy classes but was unable to complete them due to stress.

He did not do well at school, he explains. He and his six siblings were taken into care in 2002. He returned to the site when he was 16. “It did affect my schooling. Everyone in school knew I was in care and I was a Traveller.

“I am going to try and get more classes. But I need basic facilities for my family. We are on the waiting list for a house, but we don’t want a house. We want to live here, where we have always lived. We are very quiet, just keep to ourselves here.”

A council spokeswoman said that as ownership of the site was unclear, building permanent structures was impossible. It was not council land, yet no one had claimed ownership.

A tree surgeon was due to visit the site to cut back the overhanging tree. A portable chalet could be provided if the families wanted it, she added.

The Wicklow Traveller Accommodation Programme proposes the families “be offered alternative social housing accommodation”, but the spokeswoman said this was unlikely to happen in the short term, given the high demand for social housing and the fact the Moorehouses didn’t want to move.