Edited by Kate Heffernan
The client WM has one young daughter, age 3. After losing her job in December 2024, WM became unable to pay her landlord the following months’ rent. WM informed her landlord and the Council, which was in a rural region, of this; and a member of the Council staff told WM there was no further support available to her other than the HAP Scheme she was already participating in. As a result, the client and her daughter had no other option but to leave the property and effectively become homeless. Before exiting the property, the client used her last pay cheque to pay all bills (including rent) due at that point, leaving no arrears on the property.
Before contacting MLRC, the client took the initiative to apply for emergency accommodation with the Council in her rural region. After completing the homelessness assessment, the Council refused her emergency accommodation on the basis that they considered her to have left her previous property ‘voluntarily’ and as a result she was not entitled to either homeless supports or social housing supports.
Council refused our client homeless supports
Following this, WM was forced to contact her extended family and friends for a place to stay. WM and her daughter were temporarily allowed to stay with a family member in an urban area. However, the relationship between our client and this family member broke down and WM was forced to leave the property. Our client frantically searched for accommodation for herself and her daughter and was temporarily permitted to stay on a friend’s couch in an urban area.
Our client then contacted the Council in the urban area for assistance and they referred her back to the Council in the rural region, requesting that the rural region Council provide another homeless assessment.
Our client reengaged with the Council in the rural region who told her she could do another homeless assessment with them.
Engagement with Focus Ireland and Mercy Law Resource Centre
WM was anxious to understand her legal rights in advance of this further assessment and was upset that the city Council would not deal with her. She engaged with Focus Ireland for support and was then referred to Mercy Law. We offered her a clinic appointment. Given the prior unlawful refusal by the rural Council, we intervened with written correspondence to this Council. In this correspondence, we outlined the legal reasoning behind our finding that there had previously been an unlawful refusal of emergency accommodation and requested the Council now immediately arrange emergency homeless accommodation for the client.
Legal grounds for action
We made a number of points in our correspondence. We noted that the family met the definition of homelessness under s.2 of the Housing Act 1988 and that therefore, under s.10 of the Act the family is entitled to make a request for homeless supports. We reasoned that our client and her young daughter met the definition of homelessness because there was no accommodation available to WM and her three-year-old daughter, which they might reasonably be expected to reside in. The friend’s couch which the household was sleeping on did not amount to accommodation which the household could reasonably occupy, even temporarily. Further, WM’s relationships with other family had broken down, and she had no alternative accommodation options. Moreover, WM’s income was insufficient to allow her to provide accommodation for her and her daughter from her own resources.
Further, we emphasised that the Council is not legally entitled to exclude a household from accessing emergency accommodation based on their status on the social housing list, or lack thereof. By apparently excluding our client from accessing emergency accommodation because the Council were of the opinion that our client was not entitled to social housing supports for two years, it appeared that the Council was working on the incorrect and unlawful basis that homelessness supports are a form of social housing support. We reminded the Council that the provision of short-term emergency homeless supports is governed by the Housing Act 1988 (the “Act”), which is an entirely separate legal framework to that which governs the system of long-term social housing supports. The Act does not state that a household must be eligible for social housing before being considered for emergency accommodation and the Department of Housing has previously affirmed this. Moreover, the Act does not include any language that indicates that a household is ineligible for emergency accommodation on the basis that they do not currently have an active social housing application, and to do so would suggest the Council was acting in a manner ultra vires – beyond the scope of the Council’s legislative authority.We noted that under a related, fundamental principle of administrative law, public decision makers must not have regard to irrelevant factors in making decisions.
Separately, we noted that our client had reported that Council staff did not act with integrity and courtesy towards all service users and the staff did not deliver services in a polite way, as required by the Council’s Customer Services Charter.
We advised the Council to have regard to the content of its Customer Service Charter and indeed, their legal obligation, under Section 42 of the IHREC Act to have regard to the need to protect the human rights of its service users.
The Council acknowledged our correspondence in advance of our client presenting to their homeless services team. Our client presented and was asked to submit further documentation to the Council. We continued to communicate with the Council, asking them to expedite their decision in respect of our client’s homeless assessment, as she continued to reside on a couch with a friend. Although it took a number of additional days of follow-up, our client and her three year old were placed in emergency accommodation for families.
This intervention ensured that the client and her child were no longer without shelter.
This is just one of many cases we handle each week at Mercy Law. While not every case results in an ideal outcome – this client, for example, still urgently needs a long-term home – we ensure that every individual whose case we can deal with is treated with dignity and respect.
