The former Fianna Fail minister, Mr Kevin Boland (80), is on the 10th day of a hunger-strike in protest at a ruling by South Dublin County Council that he built a timber shed on his lands at Rathcoole without planning permission. The council says he must apply for retention or pull it down, and that when there is a breach of the planning laws it is obliged to take action under the Acts.
Mr Boland's wife, Cecilia, told The Irish Times yesterday that her husband was not at home but confirmed he was still on hunger-strike. "He has completed nine days, and if they leave it any longer they won't have long to wait." She said his health had deteriorated in the last day or two.
Her husband had been in contact with the council many times and had "given them everything they wanted." Yet they had turned them down at least three times over a period of years, she said.
Mrs Boland, who runs a small horse-breeding business, said the shed had nothing to do with their house. They had bought the bit of land about seven years ago and had built the shed to keep the horses in. "There shouldn't be any problem about it."
Mr Boland told Ireland on Sunday: "If justice is not done, I can only continue my hunger-strike to the end on my own land. I am 80 years and eight months of age. It is a matter of life and death."