AN UNEMPLOYED mother-of-three has brought a High Court action in an effort to avoid being evicted from her local authority home arising from a dispute over a sum of €4,500.
Linda Brady, who has lived at Moatview Avenue, Priorswood, Dublin, since 1988, claims she and three of her adult children, who are also unemployed, have nowhere else to go and are unlikely to get accommodation from another local authority.
Ms Brady is in dispute with Dublin City Council over rent arrears. She accepts she got into arrears since 2005 but claims she has made genuine efforts to address those.
She said the council has put the arrears figure at €4,500 but she claims that figure includes charges of about €2,500. She disputes those charges and claims she has received no adequate explanation of them from the council.
Last August, she received a summons to appear before a sitting of Dublin District Court later this week to answer an application by the council for possession of her home following the issuing of a notice to quit in December 2010.
Yesterday, Feichin McDonagh SC, for Ms Brady, applied ex parte (one side only represented) for leave to bring a judicial review challenge aimed at preventing the eviction.
Mr Justice George Birmingham granted leave and also placed a stay on District Court proceedings.
In her proceedings, Ms Brady said her lawyers had sought but had not obtained an independent review of her dispute concerning the arrears. The council’s actions were disproportionate, it is argued. Ms Brady is seeking a number of declarations, including that the council’s decision to serve a notice to quit is inconsistent with her rights under the Constitution and the European Convention of Human Rights.
Mr McDonagh said the case was about arrears of rent. When his client was served with the notice to quit last December she spoke to a council official and was told, if she paid €20 per week in addition to her rent, no further action would be taken.
She had made that payment every week until May last when payments were missed, he said. The payments were made up in subsequent weeks but she received a summons last August stating the council intended to apply for an order for possession for her residence.
In an affidavit, Ms Brady, who had previously been employed as a cleaner, said she received €168 per week in social welfare payments. She said €42 of that is paid to the council toward her weekly rent of €71.60. Her three sons lived with her and all were on social welfare payments.
Their home had no central heating and the family relied on coal and electric heaters to keep warm, she said. Due to the expense of buying coal, she has had to resort to burning old clothes.