Hunger strike mum must wait for home
Despite last-ditch efforts to resolve the dispute, Tallaght cleaner Aisling Bent began refusing food at 6am.
The separated 36-year-old claims she and her children have been systematically targeted by thugs in the Glenshane Estate, where they have lived for five years.
Her car was stolen, another car torched, telephone and TV wires cut, and every front window broken with bricks or smeared with graffiti. She is 21st on South Dublin County Council housing transfer list, but has dropped demands for a four-bedroom house and is willing to consider leaving the area.
John Quinlivan, senior housing officer, said the council could not treat her situation differently to any other case.
“Our policy is to deal with the perpetrators of anti-social behaviour. We want to deal with the source of the problem rather than the fallout. It’s unfortunate, but she’s just going to have to wait just like everyone else. Why should a victim have to be relocated?”
Council figures revealed about 800 families are on the list with more than 200 claiming they are the victims of anti-social behaviour.
Mr Quinlivan said the main instigator of attacks on the family had yet to be identified.
Ms Bent said: “I’m doing this for the kids, they don’t feel safe. I just want a safe environment for my children. If they move who we suspect, they still know where I am, and I’m worried they’ll come back.”
After a meeting with housing officers, Ms Bent accused them of coming up with new reasons why she should not be moved.
“To me, it’s just excuse after excuse,” she said.
Some 20 families are understood to have been implicated in complaints of anti-social behaviour in the Glenshane Estate. Council officials said if Ms Bent agrees to a three-bedroom house, or accepts housing in other areas she will be relocated more quickly.
She recently staged a one-week protest outside council offices about this.
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