Travellers to be moved from Sandyford industrial estate and local residents oppose a temporary halting site in the area.
Following the murder of her husband, Traveller Josephine McCarthy and her nine children moved from Tallaght to an illegal halting site at Furze Road in the Sandyford Industrial Estate. She wants to stay in Sandyford to be near her three brothers, brothers-in-law, and their families.
Josephine McCarthy turned down an offer from Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council for housing in a special scheme in the Killiney area. She wants the council to buy caravans for all four families in her extended family, and to find them a halting site in Sandyford where they can live together.
The Council is clear that if their offer is refused, they will have no option but to go to court to gain an eviction order to move the McCarthy family from the industrial estate.
At the nearby Blackglen Road in Sandyford local residents are attempting to prevent a field from becoming a large temporary halting site. They vow to fight the issue all the way to the Supreme Court. Tony Kelly of the Sandyford Environmental and Road Safety Committee believes Sandyford is taking the hit for the Council failing to implement its own programme.
They now want to foist upon the community of Sandyford a 20-bay, 40-caravan halt site to solve everyone else’s problem.
The Committee holds a meeting at the Lamb Doyles pub for 150 concerned residents who want to keep Dún Laoghaire’s largest planned halting site out of their area.
An RTÉ News report broadcast on 31 July 1996. The reporter is Joe Little.