The High Court has dismissed a judicial review application by members of the extended Gavin Traveller family seeking a declaration that Dublin City Council had to take reasonable steps to provide them with group housing under its Traveller Accommodation Programme for 2005–2008.
Mr Justice Michael Peart held that the applicants had not shown that the council promised or assured them they would receive group housing at St Dominick’s Park. He also found that the council had not failed to comply with its statutory obligations in implementing the programme. The court dismissed the application; it did not order the council to provide accommodation or determine what should be included in a future programme.
The family had previously lived at the St Dominick’s Park site for about 25 years. They said attacks by members of another Traveller family forced them to leave in early 2005 and move to Belfast. They claimed the council had assured them they would be housed together and that the 2005–2008 programme made provision for their group housing.
The council denied giving any such undertaking. It argued that the programme did not reserve housing for the extended family alone, that the family’s departure and later accommodation applications created uncertainty about their intentions, and that it had been processing their housing application. The council also said the family’s circumstances and numbers had changed and that implementing the programme required room for its judgment about priorities and resources.
The judge examined the record of a June 2004 meeting involving council representatives and the Belcamp Estate Steering Committee, a residents’ association. He described the discussions about a possible group housing development as preliminary and exploratory. The number of homes, the land required and which families would be accommodated had not been settled. The programme was adopted in May 2005, after the family had left the site.
The programme referred to converting the existing 23-bay halting site into a group housing scheme. But the judge said it did not contain a specific plan to provide accommodation at St Dominick’s Park for the Gavin family alone. He concluded that the meeting and related correspondence did not establish a sufficiently specific promise to create the claimed legitimate expectation.
The judge accepted that the council had to consider Traveller accommodation needs and take reasonable steps to implement its programme. Given the uncertainty following the family’s departure, return to County Dublin outside the council’s area, and parallel claim against Fingal County Council, he found it unreasonable to conclude that Dublin City Council had breached that duty by not implementing the plans as the applicants claimed. The court made no finding about any future accommodation programme.