Offaly grandmother says families will be homeless if forced out

A TULLAMORE woman says that four families will be homeless if Offaly County Council proceeds with an order for a house to be vacated.

The County Council has a court order to possess a house in Kilbrook where Mary McInerney (67), her husband Michael (66) and two grandchildren currently reside.

Three other families live in caravans on the property and the council has issued a warning to Mrs McInerney that if they are not all out by the morning of May 7 they will be ejected.

The notice was sent to Mrs McInerney on February 18 and she says they will have nowhere to go if they have to leave their home.

She believes the council was granted the order because a “house swap” Mrs McInerney was involved in five years ago was never formally registered.

“I'm paying rent for the last five years and I'm paying electricity. I have two daughters that suffer from mental health, one girl with two children in a caravan in the backyard and another daughter in a caravan in the backyard,” she said.

“And my son that is already on the housing list with three children in his caravan,” she said.

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Herself and her husband live in the single storey house with two grandsons.

“We both have serious health problems, I'm a bad diabetic and I'm also a recovering cancer patient. My husband had a serious operation on his back and he's not able to walk too far. We can't have a house that has a stairs in it because it doesn't suit us.”

They previously lived in a two-storey house in Church View, Tullamore but arranged with another family to swap residences, hence the McInerney family's current residence in one of four Traveller-specific houses in Kilbrook, off the Clonminch Road.

Mrs McInerney said they had been allocated the house in Church View by the council after a Traveller encampment in Kilmucklin, Clara was closed down.

Her extended family in the caravans at the back of the house will have to move to the side of the road if the ejection goes ahead but Mrs McInerney is unsure where herself and her husband would go.

“We have no caravan at present but we could get the lend of a caravan and go out. But we'd rather stay in the house. I'm paying my rent, paying my electricity and paying my bills. There's no more I can do.”

She is employed as a healthcare worker with the Offaly Traveller Movement and said she had sat on the local Traveller accommodation consultative committee for 17 years but still finds herself in this situation.

She is disappointed at the lack of housing for Travellers and believes money being allocated to the local authority is not being used.

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“They're getting funding for Traveller specific houses and if they're not able to provide it so why don't they give the money to someone else who is able to provide it? We're not entitled to stay on the side of the road any more because of the trespass law so where do they want us to go?

“If I go out in the morning on the side of the road where I was bred, born and reared, I've no hassle going back to the road, but I'd be moved again tomorrow morning. They don't want to leave us there. But if they're not able to give us back our own lifestyle? Give us back our own lifestyle and we'd want no houses off them.

“Travellers have no freedom, no freedom to travel on the road, no freedom to the right to have their own culture whatsoever.”

She says that if she is forced to vacate her house the council should be mindful of who it is allocated to next because of the risk of “feuding”.

Her residence is currently in need of substantial repair with no flushing toilet and an electric hob the only means of heating water.

“We've to be out of the house on the seventh of May. The bailiffs is coming. But where are they going to put me?”

Offaly County Council was contacted for comment. A spokesperson said it does not comment on individual cases.