Wexford man misses out on council house after being charged by gardaí for sleeping in his car

By Simon Bourke, Wexford People

A Wexford man who was at the top of the council’s housing list has been denied a property after failing to clear garda vetting. Unaware there was an issue with his application, the man was informed by Wexford County Council (WCC) that he had been charged by An Garda Siochána for being drunk in a public place last year.

However, the incident in question occurred when the man was homeless and had been forced to sleep in his car for a period of time.

Bringing the case to the attention of housing staff in the Rosslare Municipal District (RMD), Councillor Aoife Rose O’Brien said the man was being unfairly “penalised” for something that was out of his control.

“He has been on the housing list for a number of years, he had to sleep in his car for a length of time last year as he had nowhere else to go,” she said at the May meeting of the RMD. “The guards came to his car, woke him up, and charged him with being drunk in a public area, even though he was asleep at the time.

“He was next in line for a house, he had applied for a property via choice-based letting (CBL) and has just been informed that his garda vetting didn’t go through; his case didn’t go to court, he has no conviction, and he was only in his car because of the housing crisis we’re currently experiencing.”

Fearing that the man would now have to go back to sleeping in his car, Cllr O’Brien said this case was a “prime example of how disconnected our support services are”.

“At a time when someone should be getting some security in his life instead he’s being penalised,” she said.

Cllr Lisa McDonald was similarly irate about the case and asked that “some level of cop-on” be applied in this instance.

“That man ticks all the boxes and yet he was denied a house because he was sleeping in his car, it’s ridiculous,” she said. “This is an unreasonable application of the garda vetting system.”