Occupiers of Castleknock property call for meeting with Kenny

Emergency accommodation residents who occupied a Nama funded property last week have called on the Taoiseach to meet them and witness their living arrangements.

Ruth Coppinger invited the group of 15 into the Dáil on Tuesday to watch Enda Kenny respond to questions on homelessness and social housing.

Afterwards, Ms Coppinger criticised the Coalition for lacking a “sense of urgency” around the housing problem. A “day of co-ordinated action” would be organised to pressure the Government into a commitment to build new homes because a proposal to supply 150 modular, or prefabricated, homes was insufficient.

One of the group, mother-of-two Amy Brennan, said the Taoiseach didn’t sympathise with them. “All he cares about is that we have modular housing so he can brush us off now and once we get that modular housing we will be out of his ear,” she said. “He didn’t even look up to sympathise with us.”

Ms Brennan said she has been staying in a hotel in Temple Bar but must leave on Thursday. “So I have to ring around now all tonight and all tomorrow hoping that another hotel or B&B or hostel will take me in. It’s a disgrace.”

Emergency list

She added: “I want the Taoiseach to see us, to see what we’re going through. To even give a bit of sympathy – we’re not getting anything off him.”

Another member of the group, Melissa Rothwell, from Blanchardstown but living in Swords, said she was homeless and trying to take care of two children.

She said she was on the emergency list for social housing for the past eight months but “nothing’s happening” so she’s been living in a hotel in that time.

Ms Coppinger and a number of others were last Wednesday ordered by the High Court to end an “occupation” of a Nama-funded property at a housing estate under construction in Castleknock, Dublin.