The High Court has refused to quash Carlow County Council’s decision not to provide further emergency accommodation to a mother and her young son, and declined to order the council to reconsider their application. The judge said the mother could make a new application if further circumstances arose.
The judicial review concerned a council decision dated 27 June 2017. The applicants sought to have that decision quashed and an order requiring the council to consider their emergency accommodation application. The mother argued that the council had confused the rules governing social housing support with the separate statutory test for homelessness and emergency accommodation. She also challenged the reasons given for the decision and relied on family-life protections.
The judgment recounts that the mother and child returned to Carlow in March 2017 after the mother left an abusive relationship. The mother had obtained a District Court protection order in June. After stays with relatives, the council provided a week of guesthouse accommodation from 28 April. It later arranged bed-and-breakfast accommodation from 9 May to 12 June. The mother said she was homeless and living in a tent outside the council’s offices after that accommodation ended; the child was staying from night to night with friends and extended family.
The judge rejected the claim that the council had conflated the two statutory regimes. He read the council’s reference to the family being reasonably expected to use “alternative accommodation” as addressing the 1988 Act’s homelessness test, rather than using the defined term from the 2011 social housing regulations.
The court said the relevant legislation gave the council discretion and that judicial review was limited to whether there was a rational basis for its decision. It considered a 24 May meeting, which reviewed the family’s housing history and the child’s needs, along with the council’s memo and the material attached to its June decision letter. The mother had been asked to provide a list of rented properties and landlord or agent details but did not provide that list. The judge concluded that the refusal was not fundamentally at variance with reason and common sense, and that the council had given adequate reasons.
The court therefore refused both requested orders. It did not direct the council to provide accommodation or make a fresh decision. The judgment records that the court was told the mother would have access to a housing assistance payment to contribute towards rent.