The Supreme Court has dismissed an appeal in a case examining the statutory duties of local authorities and Traveller accommodation.
The applicant, Ellen O’Donnell, who has cerebral palsy and is confined to a wheelchair, lives with 8 other family members in a caravan deemed to be unfit for human habitation. While the family was initially provided with two mobile homes – one made wheelchair accessible – one of the caravans was given to the applicant’s grandmother in return for an older home that was ultimately rendered uninhabitable. The result was a family of 9 living in an overcrowded two-bed mobile home of such disrepair that the applicant could not access her home, or the toilet and washing facilities independently.
A support worker for the Irish Wheelchair Association requested that the Council address such unworkable housing concerns. In the Council’s view, the family had already been provided with adequate accommodation, and subsequent alternative arrangements were rejected by the family.
The High Court found that while the O’Donnell family appeared to have abdicated all responsibility for the maintenance and upkeep of the caravan, having already created an artificial overcrowding situation by swapping the other caravan, the Council had failed to vindicate Ellen’s rights under Article 8 of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) by not providing necessary assistance in accessing the required repairs. While the Court ordered the Council to provide temporary accommodation until permanent accommodation became available, none of the other family members were granted damages and an order for specific caravan accommodation was refused. Both the Council and the O’Donnells appealed to the Supreme Court.
The five-judge Supreme Court unanimously upheld the decision of the High Court that the conditions in which Ellen was living severely compromised her capacity to live to an acceptable human standard of dignity. While the Court recognised that the situation that arose may partly have been the responsibility of Mr. and Mrs. O’Donnell, when faced with clear evidence of inhuman and degrading conditions there was a duty on the Council to carry out its statutory duties and vindicate Ellen’s constitutional rights under Article 40 and Article 40.3. The Court maintained that the ECHR or constitutional rights of the other family members were not violated.
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