Father-of-8 seeks bigger house for 2 more babies

A man who is picketing outside his local council to get a bigger home for his eight children said he wants to have at least two more babies.

Jason Casey, 42, said Limerick City Council is “discriminating against large families” by not providing them with adequate housing.

He says his family is entitled under the constitution, to adequate housing.

“If I could, I’d have 17 children. I love having children,” he said.

The unemployed former hotdog vendor has been on the city’s local authority housing list for 10 years.

He currently squeezes into a three-bedroom house with his wife and eight children.

Now in his seventh week on the picket at City Hall, Mr Casey said he will continue his silent protest until he’s successful in getting a larger house for his clan.

Speaking yesterday, Mr Casey further explained: “I’m on unemployment benefit. I get €520 a week for all of the family. I claim for all of them. I’m unemployed two-and-a-half years now. I was trying to sell the hot dogs and I went to the Paul Partnership (social inclusion group).”

“They said it was a great idea, and then I went to get a special licence to trade but the council wouldn’t give me one.”

Mr Casey, from Garryowen, said he wanted to work to earn money for his family, but he said the council had trashed his entrepreneurial ethos.

Mr Casey said he and his wife loved having children.

“We’re going to have at least another two kids. I want my children to know they will be schooled and they’ll all finish school. Hopefully they’ll all get a good education and become good Irish taxpayers in the future.

“I’m not shy of work. I want to work. We all need to get our country out of where it is. The people in charge are making a mess of it. I don’t want money for nothing, I’m in the same boat as everyone else. They’re giving regeneration people council houses. I just want the same.”

Donal Moore, Limerick City Council Housing Officer, wouldn’t comment on individual cases.

However, he said, “every effort” is being made to deal with the concerns of people on the housing waiting list on a daily basis.

Nine babies

* A Mexican woman is set to make medical history by giving birth to nonuplets less than a year after she became mother to triplets.

Karla Perez, 32, is scheduled to give birth by caesarean section on May 20, when she is seven months’ pregnant.

Doctors have told her she is carrying six girls and three boys. She is thought to have fallen pregnant just two weeks after giving birth to triplets on Nov 4 last year by caesarean.

Karla, who lives in Coahuila, also has a four-year-old boy, Braulio.

All four children, as well as the nine she is carrying, are understood to have been conceived naturally.

She said: “I felt like I was going to pass out when they told me I was expecting nine children.”

Karla’s husband earns between €6 and €12 a day working on and off in a tyre repair shop.