Clare County Council and Ennis Town Council appear to have a policy of not providing permanent accommodation to Travellers who want to give up a nomadic way of life, it was claimed at the High Court yesterday.
Mr Justice McKechnie gave three Travelling families, who between them have 16 children, leave to seek by way of judicial review a declaration that the local authorities have a statutory obligation under the Housing Acts 1966 -1998 to provide them with adequate and conventional housing.
They also got leave to seek a declaration that giving a temporary halting site, with the intention that they reside there for years, is an unlawful, insufficient and inadequate performance of the authorities' duty to provide the families with suitable living accommodation.
Mr Saul Wolfson, for the Travellers, said his clients were seeking to impugn notices requiring them to remove their caravans at different locations in Ennis to a temporary Traveller halting site at Gort Road, Ennis by 2 p.m. yesterday. The three families were on a housing list and had stated clearly their intention to be integrated into the settled community. They had been approved for housing.
Mr Wolfson said efforts to find out where the three families were on the housing lists had been unsuccessful. When the families issued legal action against the local authorities, they got notices of a procedure whereby people living in a caravan could be asked to move if they were within five miles of a Travellers' halting site. The local authorities did nothing until the Travellers decided to issue proceedings, he said.
It appeared that the council's policy was not to provide permanent accommodation to people who did not want to continue leading a nomadic life, Mr Wolfson said.