Hardship cases among families facing eviction from houses in the Curragh military base will be treated with compassion, the Minister for Defence promised yesterday. Mr Smith's department was strongly criticised, however, by opposition politicians, who described the threatened evictions as "unthinkable" and "unbelievable".
Fifty-four families living in the "married quarters" at the Curragh, some of them for 20 years, have been been told by the department it will take steps to have them removed if they do not vacate their homes. In a statement yesterday, the department said there was a long-standing problem of "overholders" residing in its property.
Married quarters were made available to serving members of the Defence Forces and the majority of residents vacated the houses when they left the Army.
It was made "very clear" to all personnel that on their retirement from the Defence Forces, the properties must be vacated to make way for serving members and their families, the statement said.
A minority of the occupants and their families, however, chose to ignore this.
There were now 80 overholders and 26 had indicated a willingness to purchase their houses at prices of between €30,000 and €40,000.
Letters formally requesting occupants to vacate had been issued to the remaining 54, 11 of whom had also been offered a chance to buy their homes.
The remaining 43 houses could not be sold as they were within the barracks, the statement added.
Mr Smith said he recognised there was a "degree of disquiet" among many of the occupants, and he wished to assure them that each case would be examined on its merits and "genuine hardship" cases dealt with compassionately.
However, one resident, Mr Tom Hetherington, said the department had made no attempt to date to find out the financial circumstances of the families concerned.
He was living on a widower's pension of €123 a week and had no prospect of finding alternative accommodation.
Mr Hetherington disputed figures given by the department, which said a "nominal charge" of between €2 and €20 was being withheld from pensions to cover the cost of overholding.
In his own case, the department was withholding his entire Army pension of €1,300 a month, before tax, to cover rent and electricity.
The families, he said, did not wish to be unreasonable and were prepared to put proposals to the Minister, which would allow them to stay together as a community and remain in the area.
Mr Jack Wall, a Labour TD for Kildare South, said evicting the families would be "unthinkable" and he called on the department to enter into immediate negotiations with the families.
"These are families of personnel who have served the State loyally. Is Minister Smith seriously intending to reward such loyalty by dumping them out on the side of the road?"
The Fine Gael defence spokesman, Mr Dinny McGinley, said it was "unbelievable" that the Minister was "adopting the tactic of eviction". He called on Mr Smith to initiate negotiations with the Minister for the Environment, Mr Cullen, to provide alternative accommodation.
