A CO Dublin family has brought a legal challenge to an attempt by Dún LaoghaireRathdown Council to have them evicted from their council home on anti-social behaviour grounds.
Bernadette Caffrey, who lives with her son Ross Moore (12) at Davitt Park, Ballybrack, is seeking a High Court order restraining the council seeking a District Court order, under the Housing Act, for possession of their home.
Leave to bring the case was granted yesterday by Mr Justice John MacMenamin, who also put a stay on the District Court proceedings pending the High Court action.
Ms Caffrey has been living in the council house since 1998. She claims the proceedings against her are incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights because they allow the District Court to grant a warrant for possession without any independent review of a factual dispute over whether tenancy has been properly terminated. She also claims the eviction proceedings are unreasonable and contrary to natural and constitutional justice.
Proinsias Ó Maolchaláin, for Ms Caffrey, yesterday said similar actions before the High Court had resulted in finding tenants’ rights had been breached because of the absence of an independent hearing into allegations against them.
In an affidavit, Ms Caffrey said the council informed her in January 2009 it had decided to terminate her tenancy on grounds of “persistent anti-social behaviour emanating from her address and in the interests of good estate management”. She was told that if the family did not leave, an application would be made to the District Court for possession of her home.
She said there were allegations of anti-social behaviour at her home in 2001, 2002, 2006 and 2008 and she received several letters from the council.
In 2006, she was asked to stop all anti-social behaviour and undertook there would be “no more complaints” of incidents.
She said most of the alleged incidents related to her daughter, Kelley, who lived in Crumlin and only visited occasionally.