Judge is prepared to quash eviction notice
JUDGE TO GIVE DETAILED DECISION IN BRADYS’ APPEAL AT LATER DATE
A HIGH Court judge has said he is prepared to grant an order quashing an eviction notice against Sinn Fein TD John Brady and his wife.
Mr Justice Max Barrett said he will give his detailed decision at a future date on the Bradys’ challenge to Wicklow County Council, which served the eviction notice in a dispute over an allegedly unauthorised attic conversion in their council-owned home in Bray.
Following the completion of legal submissions from the sides last Tuesday, June 14, the judge indicated he was prepared to grant an order quashing the eviction notice but will give his full judgment later.
Mr Brady, elected a councillor in 2004 and a TD this year, and his wife Gayle, brought judicial review proceedings over the notice served on them over the 2004 attic conversion, which was an alleged fire hazard.
The council opposed the challenge and argued the situation was the result of the couple’s own actions. The fact the conversion is now substantially in compliance proves the work was required, it said.
Mr Brady believed the notice was issued because of his criticism of the council in the past.
He told the court there had been a lot of tension between him and officials in the immediate run up to what he said were ‘so-called random inspections’ of council houses where extensions had been carried out.
He had been highly critical of the council over the deaths of two council fireman in 2007 and during a subsequent health and safety prosecution against it. He had also supported two women who staged a sit-in at Bray Town Hall over homelessness.
As a result of the sit-in incident, the council deducted payments from his salary as a councillor, removed his security clearance from the Bray council building and told him he was only entitled to go into public areas, he said.
He had also been highly critical of the failure of the council to upgrade all the houses in Oldcourt estate in Bray, where eight members of one family had died in a fire.
The council rejected his claims and said inspections of local authority property were normal so as to ensure its housing stock was maintained in good order.