IMAGES ARE OF Eoin and Maria McGovern and children and Eoin with Senator Sarah O’Reilly
Aontú Senator Sarah O’Reilly has today vowed to stay in the Seanad all night if it means that proposed planning changes for modular homes could be passed to include caravans and mobile homes.
Speaking today, Senator O’Reilly says that the proposed relaxation of planning laws around modular homes is “common sense and much needed” but says she has serious concerns about those living in “homes on wheels “ saying there are people up and down the country who have invested in mobile homes in a bid to put a roof over the heads and who are living in constant fear of being evicted by local authorities.
She says
“I have worked closely with a family in Ballyhaise in Co. Cavan who are petrified that they’ll be evicted from the mobile home they live in behind their parents’ home. They never realised the mobile home needed planning permission as it’s on wheels. The current planning rules around cabins and modular units are bizarre and ludicrous. The fact that modular units of 40 square meters attached to existing structures don’t need planning approval, but stand alone units do, makes little sense”.
“They have two little babies, they work hard and all they did was try and fend for themselves.””I want to know if the enforcement order served on them will now be lifted. They have gone through enough”.
Senator O’Reilly continued: “Another element of this is that there is currently a planning exemption for the construction of accommodation, including modular units, for those seeking international protection. The government could, theoretically, build an accommodation centre for asylum seekers in the field next to this family, for hundreds of people to live, without a single sentence appearing on An Bord Pleanala’s website. Yet this young couple and their two babies are being threatened, and have the law brought down harshly upon them, for parking a mobile home in their back garden where it is not even visible from the road”.
“While I welcome the proposed planning changes, Aontú believes that we need a quick timeframe for the change – I’m prepared to sit in the Seanad all night to get this change passed through the house if necessary. We need a commitment also from the government that those currently under pressure and under threat of eviction will have a stay put on their eviction until the change is made”, concluded Senator O’Reilly.
