Rats force Traveller family to live in van

FIVE children and their parents are being forced to sleep in the back of a van because their damp mobile home has become infested with rats.

The Clare family has been living at an emergency Traveller site for the past five years at Bellaghboy, Co Clare, which first opened as a temporary site but is now scheduled for closure.

Father-of-five Francie Doherty, whose wife is pregnant, said he has been on the council housing waiting list for eight years and claimed the council has not “kept its end of the bargain” and provided his family with a home.

The Bellaghboy site is a concrete facility with toilets and shower units.

Mr Doherty said when the units were recently taken away, rats came up the sewers and infested his home.

He said he had the offer of a caravan from another family member, but claimed the council wanted to charge him €500 to scrap his mobile home, which he did not have.

“We are caught on all sides. We agreed to settle, but now we have not been provided with a home,” he said. “We have been sleeping in the van for three long weeks and have been living here for five long years when we were promised it just only for three,” he said.

One of his daughters now has a kidney infection from sleeping in the cold van, he said.

Pat McNamara, principal of the children’s school, said they have an excellent attendance record. He said he had written to Clare County Council on behalf of the family recently to request they look at the case again.

Bizarrely, although the Dohertys and another family are living in the emergency site, another family parked illegally outside is not being allowed in even though they have nowhere else to go.

The family, whose children attend a nearby school, were given 48-hours on Monday to move their caravan or have it impounded.

The father of the family said he is willing to go to any spot the council tells him to, but that many authorised sites are closed.

He claimed the council was hounding him from place to place as he was illegally parking. He said his caravan had been impounded and taken to Cork and he had to pay €1,000 to get it back.

Clare County Council said it has ongoing challenges in relation to illegal encampments on the roadside.

“Clare County Council has dealt with 20 incidences of illegal encampment in the last two months at various locations,” a spokesperson said.

“The council is working, and will continue to work, with Travellers and Traveller representative bodies who are members of the Clare Local Traveller Accommodation Consultative Committee.”