AN order allowing for Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council to provide a temporary halting site for a number of travelling families at Blackglen Road, Sandyford, was set aside by the Supreme Court yesterday.
Last year the High Court turned down a challenge by a number of local residents to the proposed site. The residents brought an appeal to the Supreme Court, which has now found in their favour.
The Blackglen Road site is owned by the council and consists of approximately five acres of land. The plan was to develop a 20 bay site which would accommodate six families still living at a site at Ballyogan Road and other travelling families living on the roadside at other locations in the administrative area.
The residents who took the case first became aware of the proposal from a newspaper report of May 19th, 1995. They strenuously objected. Their concerns related to traffic problems, water and sewage facilities and planning aspects.
It was claimed there were already two halting sites in Sandyford electoral area and that the provision of the additional site would contravene the policy adopted by the Joint Committee for the Settlement of Travelling People in the Dublin Area that there should not be more than two halting sites in each ward.
Giving his Supreme Court judgment, Mr Justice Keane said it was clear the order was made because the families on the Ballyogan Road site and other families on the roadside in the administrative area were regarded as "homeless persons" within the meaning of Section 2 of the Housing Act.
Since the evidence was that all the travellers concerned had been offered, but had not in every case accepted, accommodation by the council, it followed that they could not properly have been regarded as "homeless persons" within the meaning of Section 2.
It was clear that a housing authority was obliged to have regard to the needs not merely of those who were "homeless" within the meaning of Section 2 but also of those in the travelling community who were living in unacceptable conditions but did not wish to abandon their traditional way of life.
The manager was, accordingly, entitled to provide a halting site at the Blackglen location for those members of the travelling community who were not "homeless" within the meaning of Section 2 but did not wish to be accommodated in local authority housing.
The judge said the evidence was that the persons concerned were not "homeless persons" within the meaning of section 2. If that was the basis on which the halting site was being established, it was an unlawful use of the power under section 13 of the Act.