A Tallaght family are sleeping on the floor of a church after fleeing racist attacks at their home.
Emmanuel Chris Enoch and his children are desperately seeking assistance after they were forced out of their Council house in Jobstown.
The family have spent the last 35 days living in a local church with "nowhere to wash" or "make lunch".
And now they are now faced with the prospect of having to move out with nowhere to go.
Emmanuel told Dublin Live: “We’ve been sleeping on the floor of the church in Tallaght and now we’ve been told that we must go back to the house.
"We’ve been told to leave because it’s not a suitable place. If we keep staying in the church it will lose its status as a place of worship and I don’t want that.
“We had to sleep in the car and then we managed to sleep in the church while we waited for the Council to get back to us.
“We’ve nowhere to wash, to shower and we can’t even make lunch. The Council can’t do anything, they’re telling us that we’ve to go back to the house.”
Emmanuel and his sons, aged 16 and 17, and his daughters, both 12, felt that they had to leave their home in order to survive.
He said their house was broken into, their car was set on fire, and there was slurs written on their walls.
But a terrifying knife attack earlier this year was the last straw.
“We thought it was something that we could eventually get over but on January 12, I was in the house at about 8:45 and the door went," he recalls.
"I thought it was somebody looking for someone or a delivery or something.
“I opened the door and I saw a knife coming straight for my head. I dodged it and tried to push the door shut but I didn’t know there were other guys in the premises, so I started shouting for help.
“My two boys were upstairs, they called the guards, we had to keep pushing the door to prevent the intruders from coming in.
“The council came the following day, it wasn’t safe for us to live in the house so they boarded it up.
"I asked them where they were taking us and I said that they should have a place for me and my four children because my wife is not well.
“We never had such a horrible experience, my children were crying, some were throwing up. I don’t understand how many times somebody needs to be attacked, do lives have to be lost?”
People Before Profit TD for Dublin South West Paul Murphy, who is supporting the family's campaign. said: “This family has been living a nightmare.
"They have faced repeated verbal and physical assaults over eight years, which culminated in a terrifying home invasion in January.
“They cannot go back to that house and need emergency assistance from the Council."
Dublin Live has contacted South Dublin County Council for comment
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