Family defiant despite halting site eviction

AN illegal caravan encampment at a Traveller halting site in Cork was cleared by gardaí yesterday.

One of the evicted families remained defiant last night, however, with children occupying an abandoned car at the Mahon site.

Cork City Council said the family, Hugh and Anne Maguire and their 10 children, had been allocated a place in a halting site in Dundalk, where they had been based prior to living in Cork. The Maguire family, it emerged, had also abandoned a council house in Mahon to move to England to support Mr Maguire who had been hospitalised after a skin graft operation.

City Hall spokesman Damien O’Mahony defended the decision, saying: “If Mrs Maguire had advised the council of her intention to vacate the house because of her family’s need to be at her husband’s side, we would have made an appropriate and compassionate response.

“We received no notification and the property they abandoned in a housing estate was left in an extremely bad condition.”