Three unemployed bricklayers are today facing jail for failure to comply with a court order to stop picketing outside a building site in Ballybrack, Dublin. The men claim they are entitled to be given jobs on the site as they live locally but have been unable to get work.
The men, all from the Ballybrack/Sallynoggin area, are part of a group that placed a picket on the Collen Construction Ltd building site where 77 local authority houses are being built at Wyattville Road/Laurel Avenue, Ballybrack.
The High Court earlier this week granted the construction company an injunction restraining the men from watching, besetting and picketing the site.
The three men, Andrew Clarke, Cromlech Fields, Ballybrack; Keith Kelly, Ashlawn Park, Ballybrack; and William McClurg, Sallynoggin, say they live in the community and are entitled to be employed at the site.
Ms Justice Mary Laffoy told the three men yesterday that the president of the High Court had granted an order preventing them from picketing the site and this has to be obeyed.
The company, she said, had sought an order committing the men to prison. She was not sure if they understood that and that it was not a matter of the court punishing them. The judge said she would give the men an opportunity to reflect on the matter overnight and to consider the consequences of not obeying the order.
She told them to be back in court at 11am today. Ms Justice Laffoy added that this was a private dispute but the court would ensure its own orders were obeyed.
Earlier, senior counsel for the construction company, Roddy Horan, said the men were in breach of the High Court order. They were not employees on the construction site or of the two sub-contractors on site.
The court was told five men placed pickets at the gates of the site and two trucks were stopped on Tuesday. On Wednesday, six men had placed a picket.