A legal challenge over Dublin City Council’s refusal to prioritise a woman and her young daughter on its social housing list since 2018 did not proceed because they were offered a house soon after the case was initiated in late 2024.
Having accepted the housing offer was made due to the applicants’ place on the ordinary housing list, and not in response to their case, High Court Judge Cian Ferriter directed each side to pay their own legal costs.
The mother argued she and her daughter were entitled to priority for reasons including that both had been subject to domestic violence from her ex-partner and her daughter had alleged sexual abuse against him. She could not understand why the council considered they remained safe in the house, formerly owned with her ex-partner, she said.
Her application for priority in 2019 under the Housing Act 2009 due to “exceptional social grounds”, and a further application in 2023 when she alleged her ex-partner’s behaviour continued to worsen, were refused. A council review upheld the refusal.
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In August 2024, a further council decision maintained its refusal of priority. A council officer said the woman told a senior social worker in September 2023 she was not nervous about remaining close to where her ex lived because she had a protection order. Gardaí had informed the officer that there were no breaches of the safety order since 2020, said the officer.
The woman “fundamentally” disputed this characterisation of events and her solicitors wrote in September and October 2024 urging the council to reconsider.
The mother and daughter were provided by a charity with short-term emergency accommodation in late September. Their solicitors wrote a pre-action letter a month later and got leave in November for judicial review of the August 2024 refusal.
The council wrote to her solicitors in early December, reiterating the basis of its refusal of priority but noting that, because the applicants were on the housing list since 2018 and were number 114, they were within the offer zone for “choice-based lettings”.
The council expected a property to become available early in 2025 within the applicants’ chosen area and proposed adjournment of the proceedings to allow for engagement on that.
A house offer was indicated in December. But the council disputed the woman’s solicitors’ statement that this was in response to the proceedings and set out other reasons for refusing priority, including the woman having a permanent job and being unaware of any evidence she had experienced domestic violence since 2019.
The proceedings were adjourned 11 times due to the formal offer of a house being delayed until April 2025 for reasons the council said were outside its control. The woman’s acceptance of the offer made her case moot or pointless.
In ruling on costs, the judge held that each side should pay their own costs for reasons including the challenge was over the council’s refusal of priority and the house offer was made without it changing its decision that she was not entitled to priority.
