Challenge over refusal to rehouse family after attack, is adjourned

The High Court has adjourned a challenge by a family of six claiming to have been forced out of their council home by anti-social and racist attacks.

Amaka Blessing Aigboboh, her husband Christopher Enoch and their four children, say South Dublin Co Council has refused them temporary emergency accommodation and, as a result, five members of the family are sleeping on a church floor because they say they can’t return to their home. Ms Aigboboh is in hospital seriously ill, it is claimed.

The family say they left their home at Dromcarra Avenue, Tallaght, Dublin, following an attack on January 12th last when a group of youths, at least one of whom was wielding a knife and another a hammer, carried out a 25-minute attack trying to get into the house.

It was the latest in a number of “significant anti-social and racist behaviours from which our family suffered”, Ms Aigboboh said.

She said that following the January 12th attack, the council advised them to leave the house and they did so. However, follow-up efforts to get the council to re-house them were not successful and they were told they would have to return to the house, which they refused to do.

Last week, Mr Justice Charles Meenan granted the family leave to bring judicial review proceedings challenging the refusal to re-house them following a one-side only represented application.

On Friday, the judge was told the parties had agreed the matter could be adjourned to a later date. The judge said it could come back in three weeks’ time for mention.