A family whose house is due to be demolished to make way for the Luas Green Line extension has denied giving consent for the demolition to the Railway Procurement Agency (RPA).
The family's legal representatives also contend that the environmental impact assessment (EIA) for the extension of the line did not give proper consideration to route options that would preserve the house, which is a protected structure.
The EIA further failed to take into account the circumstances of the family, who do not wish to be named, one of whom has an intellectual disability and would be incapable of coping with the move, they said.
The family was yesterday addressing the public inquiry into the extension of the line from Sandyford to Cherrywood in south Dublin.
The RPA had told the inquiry that the family had accepted the need to demolish their 18th-century listed house. However, the owners said they would never agree to the demolition.
"I would never accept it ... I said [to the RPA] that we were going to fight this," one owner said.
His wife told the inquiry they had bought the house, which they had completely refurbished, be- cause it had additional buildings making it suitable for her disabled brother. Her brother's condition meant he could not cope with change and he already had a brain haemorrhage caused by stress-induced seizures.
Representing the family, Eamonn Galligan SC said the EIA was supposed to consider the human impact of a project, but his clients were not mentioned.
The assessment did not adequately consider other routes and appeared to be relying on a Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council plan requiring the demolition of the house for a road that had not yet been approved and contravened the county development plan because the house is a protected structure.
Dublin's light-rail Luas system was involved in 46 accidents - or almost one a week - with other vehicles and pedestrians last year. New figures seen by The Irish Times show that the vast majority of these occurred on the red line connecting Tallaght to Connolly station.
The figures show that last year there were 36 accidents involving contact between a tram and another vehicle. Some 34 of these occurred on the red line, with two taking place on the green line connecting Sandyford to St Stephen's Green.
