Families to be evicted from emergency hostel on election day

Thirteen families have condemned the government for evicting them from emergency accommodation on election day.

The families, currently housed in a hostel on Mountjoy St, were told they would have to leave the building within a week. Mother of three Aisling Kenny and her partner Mark are one of the families told they will have to leave next week.

“On Thursday, two council officials came to the building and said we have to leave on the day of the election. At that point, they wouldn’t say where we were going, or why we had to move. All they said was they were trying to accommodate us,” she said.

According to Ms Kenny, Dublin City Council have since offered her a place in emergency accommodation in Catherine’s Gate.

“Now they say they can house us in Catherine’s Gate but it’s going to be so hard to get the kids to school every day. I don’t drive and Mark is working all day. We already pay €70 a week in Leap cards that’s only going to increase,” she said.

Her partner earns €400 a week on a community work placement but Ms Kenny says after the couple have paid rent to the council along with transport and heating costs, they barely have enough to eat.

“When they told us we had to move again, I broke down. I’ve been through all this before. Molly, my little girl, fell apart. In this place, she’s not allowed to talk to the other children so she’s knows it’s not normal but at least she had a home. The poor thing is being moved all over the place, it’s taking it’s toll.”

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Part time care assistant and single mum Carol McNulty says she is ‘terrified’ to be moved to the scene of a gangland shooting.

“I heard through the grapevine we were all moving. Later I was offered a room in the Regency Hotel, the place where the man was shot. I’m terrified going there. My daughter asked ‘is that where the man got dead mammy?’ I didn’t know what to say.”

Ms McNulty, who was staying with relatives before getting a place in Mountjoy St, is worried her daughter will be taken from her if she can’t find affordable accommodation

“I’m so worried I’ll lose her if we end up moving around in hotel rooms. Everything is so expensive and it’s impossible to afford Dublin rents. My daughter keeps asking me to go to bank machine and get money for a new house. Now I’ve to tell her we’re moving again. The Government is doing nothing to help us. They just don’t care. The fact that they’d evict us on election day speaks multitudes.”

The mothers claim officials from the council have blamed an increase in rent for the closure of the Mountjoy hostel.

“We went to DCC and they told us the landlord wanted to increase the rent and that was the reason they were pulling out. It’s madness because they’ll end up paying €200 a night for the hotel rooms. It’ll cost the State €18,000 a week to house the families,” Ms Kenny said.

A DCC spokesperson said the council would work with families to find alternative accommodation: “The emergency homeless accommodation on Mountjoy St is provided by a private landlord. Dublin City Council has a contractual agreement in place with the private landlord. The provision of emergency accommodation will cease at the end of February 2016. Dublin City Council are currently in the process of putting alternative arrangements in place for all households concerned and will ensure that there is emergency accommodation provided for them by the end of February.”

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