A number of businesses operating from a commercial park in Cork city have secured High Court injunctions against Cork City Council, directing it to take steps to secure the removal of a number of Traveller families from the adjacent area.
However, Mr Justice Paul Gilligan put a stay on the injunctions until Friday next after David Holland SC, for the council, said he would seek instructions on whether to take the matter elsewhere.
The proceedings were brought by Harrington Confectioners Ltd, Waters Munster Glass Ltd, Chorus Communications Ltd, Right Price Carpets and Furniture Centre (Cork) Ltd trading as Right Price, JMT and Associates Ltd, M Drummy Ltd, John Fitzgerald, and Paudie Ó Dea.
The plaintiffs, represented by James Macken SC, had purchased sites or units from Cork City Council by way of long leases.
The injunctions direct the council to take all reasonable steps to remove all trespassers from the John F Connelly Road and its environs at Churchfield in Cork. They also direct the council to ensure no further caravans are permitted entry to the area pending the determination of legal proceedings between the businesses and the council, and to carry out a complete clean-up of the John F Connelly Road.
In his judgment, Mr Justice Gilligan said a number of caravans without any legal entitlements had, since 2002, entered on to the John F Connelly Road, the adjacent footpath, and the strip of land adjacent to the footpath. At times, there were in excess of 20 caravans parked in the area and immediately adjacent to the various plaintiffs' business premises.
The persons involved were members of the travelling community and, over the passage of time, they had brought caravans, trailers, motor vehicles, animals, equipment and other matters on to the council's lands, the judge said. At times, there could be upwards of 80 men, women and children together with an assortment of animals. There were no sanitary facilities and the general area was used by these persons for public toilets.
The council maintained it had taken all reasonable steps to date to abate the nuisance, erecting a large number of cement bollards along the areas immediately adjacent to the road surface and bringing about a situation whereby there was now only parking space for 13 caravans.
The council also said it had tried, albeit somewhat unsuccessfully, to replace caravans that had left the area with cement bollards but this had not always proved possible because, when one caravan departed, another immediately took its position.
Mr Justice Gilligan said he had sympathy for the position in which the council found itself but it could not seek to solve its difficulties by permitting an unlawful use to be made of its lands at the John F Connelly Road which had given rise to a serious nuisance ongoing since 2002.