The Supreme Court ruled that South Dublin County Council breached its statutory duty to Ellen O’Donnell, a disabled teenager who was living in overcrowded and unsafe accommodation, and remitted her claim for damages to the High Court for a plenary hearing.
In a judgment dated 13 March 2015, Mr Justice John MacMenamin said the council had known since 2005 about the conditions in the family’s mobile home but had not taken practicable steps to address Ellen’s needs. The court varied the High Court order in her favour. It did not determine the amount of damages; the judgment said they might be moderate.
At the time of the High Court hearing, Ellen was 15 and used a wheelchair because of cerebral palsy. Nine family members were living in a two-bedroom mobile home. A housing support worker’s 2005 letter described Ellen sharing a bedroom with four others, being carried from her wheelchair to bed, and needing assistance to reach an outside toilet. The shower was too small for her wheelchair, its water was described as “always scalding”, and the heating did not work. The council did not dispute that the accommodation problems existed.
The family had received two caravans in 2003, including a wheelchair-accessible mobile home. The judgment said the parents gave one caravan to a relative and received an older, dilapidated caravan in exchange. The second unit became uninhabitable, leaving the family crowded into the adapted mobile home. The council offered housing and caravan-site options over several years, but the family did not accept them. The court said the council had discharged its duties to the parents and the other applicants.
The court rejected the family’s argument that housing legislation entitled them to a caravan as a dwelling. It held that the council’s general duty to travellers was to provide halting sites, not caravans. However, it found Ellen’s situation exceptional: her disability and the conditions described substantially undermined her privacy, bodily integrity and autonomy. Under the Housing Act 1988, the council had a duty to take practicable steps in response to the request for accommodation made on her behalf.
The judgment said the council could have clearly offered financial assistance and arranged repairs, with support from a social worker, or considered lending another caravan. None of those steps was taken. The Supreme Court did not order the provision of a caravan or decide the parents’ potential responsibility. It said that issue could be examined at the plenary hearing on damages.