DUBLIN CITY Council has told the High Court it has cleaned up and installed CCTV on a site being offered as alternative accommodation to a Traveller family who are encamped near the M1 motorway because they are under threat from another family.
However, counsel for the Gavin family said gardaí had warned members of the family that someone would be killed if they returned to the site at St Dominick’s Park, Belcamp, Coolock.
The Gavins say they lived for 25 years at St Dominick’s before being driven out as a result of a feud with a neighbouring family. While admitting they don’t have permission to be near the M1, they have said they don’t want to go back to St Dominick’s because they feared one of them would be killed by the neighbouring Quinn-McDonough family.
They moved out of St Dominick’s and went to two other sites in Dublin and Belfast before going on to the 42-acre former port tunnel works site just off the M1’s junction with the Oscar Traynor Road and the N32.
When they moved out of the St Dominick’s site, it quickly fell into an uninhabitable condition, the court heard. The Gavins lost a separate High Court action in which they claimed the council had promised to build group housing on the St Dominick’s site.
When some 100 members of the family moved to the M1 site last year in 30 caravans, the council asked the High Court to order their removal as trespassers.
John O’Donnell SC, for the Gavins, said they would be disputing there had been any works carried out. He said members of the family had been told by the council they would never be going back to St Dominick’s.
Counsel said gardaí also told his clients someone would be killed if they did return. The Quinn-McDonough family had signed a petition demanding the Gavins not be allowed back, he added.
Mr Justice Michael Peart said he was not going to change his mind about making an order pending a further hearing in relation to the up-to-date situation. A date will be set for that hearing.