The High Court has declined to grant orders sought by a woman challenging Donegal County Council’s decision to suspend her housing application for one year after she refused two accommodation offers. The suspension had expired by the time the hearing concluded, and the court found the issues were moot.
The applicant, a member of the travelling community, had sought a permanent halting site in the Bridgend area. She had been living in privately rented accommodation in Letterkenny with Housing Assistance Payment support since about 2008. The judgment says the three-bedroom house accommodated visits from her family, but she received a notice of termination in April 2018.
The council offered her a one-bedroom property at No. 3 Beechwood Road, Letterkenny, in November 2018, followed by an identical house a few doors away at No. 6 in January 2019. She refused both. Her stated reasons included that the properties were outside her preferred area, were not a halting site or single-instance dwelling, and did not provide space for family visits.
The council treated the refusals as two refusals of “reasonable offers” under the Social Housing Allocation Regulations 2011 and suspended her application from 28 January 2019 for one year. The applicant sought judicial review, including an order quashing the suspension and declarations that it was unlawful. Those were reliefs sought; the judgment does not decide the underlying legality of the council’s decision.
The hearing concluded on 22 January 2020, five days before the suspension expired. The applicant argued the case was not moot because the suspended period would not count towards her housing-list priority and because principles for assessing future offers of traveller-specific or suitable accommodation remained to be determined. The council submitted that she already had the maximum social-housing points, so the suspension caused no detriment to her priority.
Justice Meenan said the reasonableness of an accommodation offer depends on the particular facts and circumstances. Setting general principles for future offers would amount to legal advice, he said. He also found the case did not fall within recognized exceptions to the general rule against hearing moot cases: it was not a test case, and other cases had not been adjourned pending its outcome.
The court therefore refused the orders sought because the issues were moot. It did not make a ruling on whether the two offers were reasonable or whether the suspension was lawful.