A High Court judge has declared that South Dublin County Council breached the human rights of a wheelchair-bound traveller girl with cerebral palsy living in "exceptionally" overcrowded conditions.
Ellen O'Donnell lives with eight other family members in a two bedroom mobile home on a temporary halting site in Tallaght.
Mr Justice John Edwards said he believed the 15-year-old's rights under Article Eight of the European Convention on Human Rights - which outlaws discrimination on disability and other grounds - were being breached in this case where it was accepted the living conditions were "unfit for human habitation".
"What is the point of having a wheelchair adapted mobile home if it is so crowded with people that the wheelchair bound occupant cannot move around?" he asked.
On that basis, he would grant a declaration that Ellen and her family should be placed in adequate temporary accommodation pending their placement in permanent accommodation later this year.
The judge was strongly critical of the family's own failure to accept any maintenance responsibility for their mobile home.
However, while this could reflect a "hand-out mentality," there was also perhaps a "genuine difficulty", given the lack of formal education of Ellen's parents Mary and Patrick O'Donnell, concerning lack of awareness of the necessary services and how to access them, he said.
While he would not grant an order requiring the Council to provide another mobile home for the family, the judge said he was prepared to order the Council to exercise its powers under the Housing Acts to provide them with adequate temporary accommodation, pending permanent accommodation under the Council's Traveller Accommodation Programme 2005-2008.
He was giving his reserved judgment on proceedings by the O'Donnell family - Mary and Patrick O'Donnell and their seven children, aged from two to 16 years - who are all living in a mobile home on a temporary site at Whitestown Way, Tallaght.