Harassed family gets priority for housing

A Roma family who claim they have been subjected to a prolonged and violent neighbourhood campaign of intimidation have won a High Court order quashing Dublin City Council’s refusal to grant them priority for a housing transfer.

Ion Zatreaunu and his four children, all of whom are Irish citizens, along with his wife, Cristina Stavarache, say the lives of some of them have been threatened since they moved to a council house in Greencasle Rd, Coolock, in 2008. For the previous five years, they had lived in Artane and did not experience any problems with neighbours there.

But since moving to Coolock, they have been told on a number of occasions to return to their “own country” because they are “hated here”, the High Court heard.