A young family made homeless at the weekend are refusing to stay another night in the emergency accommodation they were allocated because they claim it is filthy and infested with cockroaches.
Alan Fitzpatrick (37), his wife Kelly (30) and children Kasey (17), Jack (10) and Bobby (six) have now pitched a tent on a green area in Clondalkin – the Dublin suburb where Alan has lived all his life.
They were given emergency accommodation in a Dublin city centre hotel by South Dublin County Council last Friday evening.
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They had been living in a house in Clondalkin under the Housing Assistant Payment scheme (HAP) for the past 11 years.
But in January they were informed by their landlord they would have to vacate the property on August 26.
The couple have been on South Dublin County Council housing list for 11-and-a-half years and have been searching for suitable housing since January to no avail.
After spending four nights in emergency accommodation in a Dublin city centre hotel, they refused to stay there due to the allegedly deplorable conditions.
Kelly claims that as a result of the room being infested with insects, she caught a skin infection. She attended her GP who wrote a letter stating that she “attended with skin rash from insect infestation from the emergency accommodation she was in”.
“I will appreciate it if you could facilitate suitable accommodation for her and her family,” he told South Dublin County Council.
In videos purportedly of the single room, seen by this paper, it contained two bunk beds, a single bed and a broken TV.
The outside of the windows were covered in what seemed to be vomit from the room above. Another video shows cockroaches scurrying around.
“We are being forced to go back to the emergency accommodation – a so-called hotel – as the Council said we will be taken off the housing list if we don’t,” Alan said last night.
“When we went into the hotel the room was worse than a prison cell. Our boys ran out of it crying and refused to sleep there so they stayed with their grandparents for the weekend. We had to call an ambulance for Kasey because she got sick and is still in hospital.
“We showed the Council the doctor’s letter and the recordings of the room and we were told we still have to go back to it or we are off the list. So we are left with no other option but to pitch a tent on the green to be near the kids’ schools, our family, friends and neighbours.”
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