CARLOW County Council believes a 26-year-old homeless mother who is camping in protest outside the council offices should live with her family. For the past week, Karen Middleton has been camping outside Carlow County Council on the Athy Road as she seeks emergency accommodation for herself and her six-year-old child.
There have been ugly and tense scenes at council offices, with Ms Middleton being arrested last Monday after she refused to leave the council building, while gardaí were also called to lift a blockade of director of services Seamus O’Connor’s car a day later.
Karen Middleton and members of the Carlow Housing Network and Hub Ireland protesting outside the council offices in Carlow last week
Photo: michaelorourkephotography.ie
Mr O’Connor insisted this week that there is available space in Ms Middleton’s immediate family for her to be accommodated, a claim which is disputed by Ms Middleton.
Mr O’Connor, who has worked with the wider Middleton family over the years, said there were four family members with three-bedroom houses in social housing.
“The resolution to this from where we are sitting is there is available capacity in her immediate family network,” he stated.
Mr O’Connor said there is an obligation on a family to take in a child or grandchild if there is no other available accommodation. He also believed the state has a responsibility to support these families to take in children and grandchildren.
“It’s my personal opinion that the state should be providing financial support to those families to bring those kids and grandkids home until a housing solution arises. Those people are not getting one penny in rent support,” he said. “There are up to 150 such families providing that involuntary sharing for quite a while – 102 in Carlow town.”
There have been ugly scenes at the council offices, with Mr O’Connor being blocked from entering his place of work and also blocked from leaving the council car park last Tuesday.
“I tried to access my office after lunchtime and a human shield was formed. I was told that if I touched anyone I would be sued for physical assault,” he said.
“When I tried to leave the office in the evening, the gate was completely blocked. It took several gardaí to clear the way for me and staff to leave after work. I am not even including the range of insults that were said to me.”
Mr O’Connor added: “The harassment, obstruction, entrapment and verbal abuse that council staff and I have been subjected to is unacceptable. Threats to blockade my home, where I live with my 87-year-old invalid mother, in front of the gardaí went unchallenged. The limited powers of helpful gardaí need to be reinforced to protect the taxpaying, mortgage-paying citizen.”
Adrienne Wallace of the Anti-Austerity Alliance-People Before Profit party took part in the car blockade. She defended it, describing it as a “direct action”. She said about ten protestors had “slow-marched” Mr O’Connor’s car out of the car park for five minutes before around a dozen gardaí arrived.
“We were just trying to make our point. Chanting ‘do your job, do your job’ and ‘banks got bailed out, we got sold out’.”
She added: “He (Mr O’Connor) consistently ignored us. He wouldn’t talk to Karen.”
Ms Wallace knew nothing of the threat to blockade Mr O’Connor’s home. “I have no idea where he got that from. There was never anything like that,” she said.
Ms Wallace believed insults made to the council official, including “short arse” and “coward”, were not nice but still understandable.
“Tempers are frayed. Karen has been sleeping in a tent all week. The way Karen has been treated is a hell of a lot worse than being called a ‘short arse’. I think people have a right to be angry,” said Ms Wallace.
Ms Middleton has repeatedly claimed she is entitled to emergency accommodation. Responding to this view, Mr O’Connor said: “Emergency accommodation is for emergencies; we gave plenty of grace for her to find accommodation in the private sector. She is also able to avail of rent support, which none of the 150 in involuntary sharing are getting.”
The council had provided emergency accommodation for up to five weeks but advised her that she would have to depend on her family network after 13 June if she could not source a property.
Mr O’Connor said the council would also be taking action to bring the protest to a conclusion.
