Homeless cousin of Carrickmines victims criticises Galway Council

A homeless Galway cousin of the family of ten that perished in a fire in portacabins in Carrickmines in 2015, has said it was “insensitive” and “unacceptable” of the authorities here to offer her similar temporary accommodation on the same week the inquests were being held in Dublin.

Ballinasloe-born and Manchester-reared Martina Lynch said she was still traumatised by the death of her cousins – five adults and five children – at a fire at a Traveller halting site in South Dublin.

The inquest into the deaths were held last week – the same week she was offered a “portacabin” to live in near the COPE Day Centre in the city. 

Ms Lynch said she has been on the County Galway housing waiting list since 2007. She has been couch-surfing at her sister’s Ballinasloe home since last November, because she was thrown-out of her emergency accommodation Bed and Breakfast over what she described as an unproved allegation of smoking cigarettes in her bedroom.

“I spent two nights sleeping rough on the streets after that and now I’m with my sister, sleeping on her couch since November, but she has children and there isn’t any room for me. I suffer from depression and I’m desperate. I just want a home and the County Council doesn’t want to know.

“They said that I was aggressive, and I would agree that I was angry after being thrown out, but it’s becauase I’m not getting help and I have apologised. They have offered me a portacabin on the Seamus Quirke Road. How dare they, in the same week an inquest into the fire that killed ten of my cousins is going on in Dublin. They are for building sites, not for living in,” she said.

Ms Lynch said the portacabin offer was a “joke”; not only was it “insensitive” given the timing, it was unsuitable accommodation and doesn’t fulfil her housing need, she said.

“I’m at the end of my tether. I’m just so fed up with it all, to be honest. There are so many boarded up houses around the county, and in Ballinasloe, but the Council told me they didn’t have the money to do them up.”

Acting Director of Services for Housing, Michael Owens, said the County Council was precluded from commenting on individual cases.