A local authority has been urged by a judge to give priority to a request for the rehousing of a man who claims he has been subjected to racially motivated attacks, including an alleged attempted arson at his council home.
Happy Agamah (64), a German citizen who came here in 2008 and works as a taxi driver, says he had been the victim of violence, intimidation and racist abuse at his flat in Ballyboden, Rathfarnham, Dublin.
He sought High Court orders requiring South Dublin County Council to provide him with alternative accommodation. The council opposed the application, saying gardaí did not believe he was under threat.
Last March, the president of the High Court, Mr Justice Nicholas Kearns, ordered the council to provide Mr Agamah’s lawyers with all the information in its possession after expressing concern a Garda report was not conveyed to the council until last November, after his application for rehousing was refused.
Psychiatric problems
The court heard another council tenant in the area had set fire to a mattress in a communal garden last June, causing a shed to catch fire and damaging the exterior of Mr Agamah’s flat. The other tenant was a woman with psychiatric problems.
When the case returned before Mr Justice Kearns yesterday, he was told the woman has been rehoused elsewhere by the council.
The council maintained, in light of the information it had provided about the Garda inquiries into the matter, the decision to refuse to rehouse Mr Agamah was reasonable.
Mr Agamah’s lawyer said the attacks and abuse had not just come from the woman who had been moved but from two other people, including one man who is believed to have criminal convictions. Mr Agamah’s human rights had not been respected and he was entitled to a transfer, it was argued.
Mr Justice Kearns said he found it “a rather odd situation” that the person alleged to have carried out the arson attack had been transferred when Mr Agamah had not.
The judge said he was prepared to make findings in the matter but he would put it back for two weeks to see if “some priority can be given to Mr Agamah” on the housing transfer list.