Depends.
Thanks Mary Harty
Yearly Archives: 2014
Screengrab of The Irish Times story on April 25, 2014, about Sabrina McMahon and her children
You may recall the story of Sabrina McMahon and her three children who spent a week living in her car in Tallaght last month.
Ms McMahon said she has been on the South Dublin Council’s housing waiting list for more than a year and she said that, while she has tried to to find private rented accommodation, she hasn’t been able to find a landlord who’ll accept rent allowance.
After her story emerged someone, who didn’t wish to be named, paid for her and her children to stay in a hotel for a month.
It later emerged that she had been living in a house in Athy, Co. Kildare but left after her and her partner broke up and the house had been vandalised.
Ms McMahon spoke with Niall Boylan on Classic Hits 4FM today and said she will be returning to her car next Friday, May 23, unless she finds alternative accommodation by then.
From the interview:
Niall Boylan: “How did you find yourself in this position in the first place?”
Sabrina McMahon: “It would be nine and a half years ago that I’m back in Dublin. I was in Athy for seven years, the house was broken into. I have all the paperwork, the paperwork from Guards, the pictures that the house had been taken over by junkies.”
Boylan: “What do you say to the newspapers that say that wasn’t the truth at all? That there was no burglary, that the house seemed to be fine…what do you say to that?”
McMahon: “I hadn’t even spoken to that paper. They came up and took a photo of the house and it looks perfect… Cllr Maire Devine, who has been dealing with me for the past two and a half years is trying to fight my case, she kept the paperwork for me and all the photographs, heroin that had been used beside my bed, the kids drawers that had been upended and all, the whole house was taken over. I had to climb over a window when I was made go up and collect my payments for a couple of months.”
Boylan: “Could the guards not get these people out of your house?”
McMahon: “No, they were just going in and out of the house as far as I know…the door was locked but they were able to get in to a little back window that was in the back of the house. I don’t know how they were doing it.”
Boylan: “When you went back to Tallaght, what was your situation then?”
McMahon: “I was staying in my mother’s; my father’s my sister’s, my friend’s…all over the place. And now next week were moving out of the hotel, even though the room is going to be free. I can’t see why they can’t put us up in that room when it’s going to be left vacant. I don’t know why they can’t continue paying for the room. There are 37 families down there in that hotel.”
Boylan: “You’ve been on the housing list for the past year or so and your problem is not that you can’t get a house in Dublin… but you want a house in Tallaght.”
McMahon:“[The council] told me to look for a one or two-bedroom anywhere. I’ve gone down to Inchicore, everywhere, somewhere I can get my kids to school in Tallaght cause that’s where they go to school…not one of them will take four people and they said they’d be over-crowded.”
Boylan: “You’ve told us if you don’t get something by next Friday you’re going to start living in your car again…”
McMahon: “That’s basically what I’m going to do.”
Boylan: “The criticism here is you have three young children. How are these kids going to go to school, how are they being fed, how are they being looked after when there is an option there of going back to Kildare…but that’s what you don’t want to do.”
McMahon: “Not after the house being broken into. I feel threatened down in Kildare, I’m isolated down in Kildare… the garda actually told me not to go back to the house, that they would try and catch the people and they never caught them…they had the backdoor key and they had barred me out of the front door.”
Boylan: “The other suggestion in the paper at the time was you had said your partner walked out on you, the papers suggested your partner had gone to jail.”
McMahon: “The paper said the right name but he was not a settled traveller, he didn’t do any bank robbery…no he wasn’t in jail… it was a totally different person they were talking about.”
Boylan: “Why Tallaght?”
McMahon: “Basically I’m 36 years old and I was born and raised in Tallaght.”
Boylan: “Could your family not help you in the interim?”
McMahon: “If I go back to any of my family I’m going to be put on their rent and I’m never going to be housed.”
Boylan: “What you want the council to do now is put you on the homeless list, not on the housing list?”
McMahon: “Yes, we’d probably be put in a hostel. Many families have to do that… I don’t get along with my family and at this stage, with three small kids. If there was anyone out there who would take me and my three small kids I’d gladly go with them.”
Boylan: “Would you not rather go back to the house and try and make a home out of it just until you get it sorted rather than having three very young children living in a car?”
McMahon: “Definitely not. The house was broken into. If you seen the pictures that I have you’d understand… my son would not go back to the house.”
Boylan: “But what do your kids think about living in a car?”
McMahon: “They’re happy with their mother. They have me and that’s all they’ll ever have for the rest of their lives… me.”
Listen to the interview in full here
Previously: Children On Board
On last night’s Tonight with Vincent Browne, Vincent was joined by journalists Yvonne Judge and Harry McGee to review the papers.
Bertie the parrot leads in today’s Star.
A Norwegian Blue, surely?
Watch in full here.
Previously: This Monkey’s Gone To Heaven
Sam writes:
Squatters, who did not want to be identified, sit outside a house on Barrow Street in Dublin 4 this afternoon in support of the people who have occupied a house that they say was owned by Nama and otherwise would be vacant. They say that if they are not left there to stay they would be homeless.
Anyone?
Sam Boal/Photocall Ireland
Finally
at
Ken Fallon writes:
I’ve a started a blog consisting of nothing else but Enda Kenny pointing. Any chance of a plug, lads? Please? Thank You!
A section of Taoiseach Enda Kenny’s diary – released to Sinn Fein under the Freedom of Information Act – which suggests that Mr Kenny met or was supposed to have met Justice Minister Alan Shatter on the morning of Sunday, March 23.
March 23 was the day Attorney General Máire Whelan told Taoiseach Enda Kenny about the practice of recording incoming and outgoing Garda station phone calls. Justice Minister Alan Shatter was supposed to have been told of the practice, and the Ian Bailey tapes, the following day, on March 24. The then Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan resigned on March 25.
A spokesman for the Taoiseach has since said there was an error in the diary released to Sinn Fein and that no such meeting between Mr Kenny and Mr Shatter took place on March 23.
In the Dail earlier this afternoon:
Mary Lou McDonald: “Today, we will commence statements on the report by Mr. Guerin. However, I wish to step back a couple of weeks to revisit the account of events given by An Taoiseach in respect of his knowledge of the revelations of the practice of taping phone calls to and from Garda stations. Those matters are the subject of a separate commission of investigation led by Mr. Justice Fennelly.”
“An Taoiseach has stated on the public record that he was first informed of the taping practice on Sunday evening, 23 March, when during a phone conversation with the Attorney General on an unrelated matter, she raised the issue. The Taoiseach then said that on Monday 24 March he met the Minister for Justice and Equality and Brian Purcell, Secretary General at the Department of Justice and Equality, and that he asked Mr. Purcell to go to see the Garda Commissioner at his home. We all know that this meeting resulted directly in the subsequent resignation of the Garda Commissioner.”
“It strikes me that the Tánaiste was left out of the loop in that sequence of events, and that was confirmed again by the subsequent developments around the resignation of the former Minister for Justice and Equality, Deputy Shatter. I will say no more about that.”
“I have obtained, through a freedom of information request, the Taoiseach’s diary from the week in question. It does indeed refer to a meeting or conversation with the Attorney General on Sunday evening, 23 March, at 5.30 p.m. to be precise. However, it also contains a reference to an earlier meeting on that Sunday and it reflects that at 7.30 a.m. the Taoiseach met the Minister for Justice and Equality and his officials. The Taoiseach has made no reference whatsoever to that meeting in his public account of the events or in his account to the Dáil.”
Ceann Comhairle Seán Barrett: “Could the Deputy ask a question please?”
McDonald: “A number of questions arise. Was the Tánaiste aware of the meeting? Did the Taoiseach inform him of it? Could he tell us which officials from the Department of Justice and Equality were present at the meeting? Was Brian Purcell there? Could he tell us what was discussed at the meeting? Was the taping of phone calls to and from Garda stations discussed? Was the fate of the Garda Commissioner discussed? Might that explain the marked reluctance of Brian Purcell to deal with the matter before the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality?”
Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore: “It seems to me that they are all questions Deputy McDonald should usefully put to the Taoiseach. I do not keep the Taoiseach’s diary. I do not know what meetings he did or did not have on Sunday 23 March. With the greatest respect, Deputy McDonald should ask him directly about those issues.”
Hmmm.
SF claims Kenny knew earlier about Garda phone taping (Irish Times)
Previously: Thin Blue Line Updated
Pic via Michael Brennan
Transcript via Oireachtas.ie
Oakswagon
at
A VW Beetle with its steering wheel, hubs, gearstick, panels, dash and entire bodywork covered with 50,000 individually applied oak tiles.
The fully roadworthy vehicle was shingled over the last two years by retired Bosnian Bug-fan Momir Bojic, 71.
Photos: Reuters
Bath Time
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Photographer Colin Gillen, of Framelight, writes:
I was on an assignment and took this photo in Co Clare. This bath collection belonged to a Del Boy character in the area. His words were: ‘I’m gonna clean up with this lot!’