CLARE COUNTY Council is seeking to renovate homes in a six-unit housing development in Ennis and make them fit for habitation again. The council has put in place 24-hour security at the site.
The scene at the largely abandoned Traveller accommodation site, built at a cost of €2 million, was yesterday described as “like something from a war movie” by the chairman of the council’s Traveller accommodation committee, Brian Meaney (Green Party).
He made the comment yesterday as a bulldozer demolished one of the homes at the site, which were built at a cost of €333,000 each. The council confirmed that the demolished home had been completely gutted in an arson attack in early February.
Four of the other homes at the site are abandoned. All their windows were broken and rubbish was strewn, including furniture, around the site.
Surveying the scene yesterday, James Breen (Independent) said: “I’m shocked at what I see here. This housing estate was built only six years ago and now it is wrecked.”
A council statement confirmed that the cost of repairing the damaged homes is €51,000, stating that “it deplores the criminal damage that has been caused to these dwellings and the waste of public funding that it represents, especially when so many people are in need of housing”.
According to the council, shortly after the arson attack, four of the families moved out.
One of the Travellers who surrendered their home, Astrid McCarthy, yesterday blamed a number of suicides among people living at the site and poor council management of the site as the reasons why Travellers have left.
Ms McCarthy was related to two of the people who died recently
She added: “With the suicides, we believe that there are bad spirits at the site and we won’t be going back.”
