HEARTLESS COUNCIL REFUSE TO RELENT ON MOORE FAMILY EVICTION DESPITE JUDGES’ APPEAL AND OFFER OF ALMOST €7000 PAYMENT OFF ARREARS
MEANWHILE COUNCIL SPENDS THOUSANDS TO STATION PRIVATE SECURITY IN EMPTY MOORE HOUSE BUT REFUSES TO TELL ELECTED REP COSTS
In a statement, the People Before Profit Alliance has condemned Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown Co Council’s rejection of an offer of nearly €7000 euro by the Moore family from Loughlinstown, against the rent arrears on the Council home from which they were recently evicted. The Council refused the offer, despite an appeal for “common sense” from a district court Judge, hearing a civil application by the Moore’s to have the eviction set-aside in Dun Laoghaire district court last Friday.
Friends and supporters of the Moore family raised the money over recent weeks in effort to defray the rent arrears of €13,000 that had built up on the tenancy and that led the Council to evict the family in May.The offer from the Moore family was made public during the hearing in Dun Laoghaire district court last Thursday and Friday.
The District court Judge, presiding, had appealed to the Council to come to some sort of arrangement with the family, given the offer of such a lump sum payment and the efforts by the family to pay the arrears in instalment over the last eight months. However, the Council rejected the offer and the judges’ appeals, leaving the judge no option legally but to rule that the eviction was lawful.
PBPA has also condemned as utterly outrageous, the failure of the County managment to answer a question tabled by Cllr Richard Boyd Barrett for the June meeting of the Council’s Dun laoghaire area committee (June 27th), which asked for details of the costs of the family’s eviction and in particular the cost of two private security personnel that have been stationed round the clock in the Moore household since the eviction took place in mid-May.
People Before Profit said that it is an absolute scandal that the likely costs of the eviction and the private security, in addition to the money offered to the Council to pay the arrears almost certainly exceed the amount of the arrears sought, making even more inexplicable the Council’s failure to come to some arrangment with the Moore family.
Cllr Richard Boyd Barrett of the People Before Profit Alliance said:
“For the Council to reject an offer of nearly three quarters of the money owed, an instalments plan for the rest, and the appeal of a judge for “common-sense,” is truly inexplicable and totally heartless. The Council’s behaviour is completely irrational. It makes no sense from a monetary point view and seems really to be just vindictive.
The whole thing becomes even more outrageous in that the Council has forked out many thousands in public money to station private security in the Moore’s former home and are now refusing to tell an elected representative how much that cost the public. No doubt, the reason the Council won’t answer the question is because the answer is a further massive indictment of the stupidity of their decision to evict. The combined costs of the eviction alongside the lump sum payment offered by the Moore’s, now far exceeds the total amount of the Moore’s arrears. As well as being cruel and without compassion, this is financial madness on the part of the Council. It also makes a total joke of democracy that an elected public representative is not entitled to find out how public money is being spent."
Cllr Hugh Lewis of PBPA, who has also been supporting the family said:
"In Court ,the judge appealed directly to the Council to let common-sense prevail and come to some sort of arrangement with the family – given all their efforts to discharge the arrears and particularly because of the large sum of money now being offered to them. The judge actually went as far as to point out, that the laws brought in during the 19th century by the British to deal with the evictions of Irish tenant farmers, showed a willingness to avoid eviction where possible – a willingness the Council appears devoid of in this case. I just cannot understand why the County management are doing this. The Moore family have been broken up completely. Anne Moore is sleeping on a couch. Her children are scattered. They are all utterly devastated by this. It’s all so cruel, stupid and pointless.”
*NB. Anne Moore is now also available for comment or interview on her family’s eviction
For more info/confirmation or to contact Anne Moore contact:
Richard Boyd Barrett 086-7814520
Hugh Lewis 087-3276267