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Tipperary man facing homelessness after council house he lived in since childhood is repossessed

A Tipperary man is facing homelessness after handing over the keys to the house where he has lived most of his life, following a court action.

Stephen Franey has called 22 Elm Park, Clonmel, home since 1993. Tipperary County Council brought a civil case against Mr Franey to take possession of the house, a council property, at a hearing in Clonmel on Thursday, July 10.

Mr Franey was ordered to leave the property at Clonmel District Court, a decision he appealed to the Circuit Court. That appeal was subsequently withdrawn.

Tipperary County Council re-entered the matter before the Clonmel Circuit Court for Mr Franey’s non-compliance with a court order. Mr Franey was committed to Limerick Prison on Thursday for failing to comply with the order of the court until the second hearing, on Friday morning, July 11.

Mr Franey was conveyed from prison to appear before Judge James O’Donoghue. The judge asked Mr Franey was he ready to purge his contempt of the court order by handing over the keys of 22 Elm Park.

Mr Franey said there is a “lifetime” of personal possessions he needed to collect from the house where he lived with his partner.

Gardaí had attempted to gain entry to the house to remove other parties involved. The difficulty was there “was not sufficient” numbers of gardaí, and they were unable to affect the re-entry of the property, the court heard. A large crowd had gathered at the house, and parties had “blockaded” themselves inside.

“You have my word in open court I will hand back the keys,” Mr Franey told the judge. Mr Franey phoned his partner in court to arrange the keys to be recovered, and asked for a time to “get stuff out of the house”.

Later, Judge O’Donoghue received news that Tipperary County Council had received the keys of the property and it had been secured with nobody in it. The judge ordered Mr Franey to be released and directed him to give an undertaking the he would not to return to the property.

“I would like to apologise to the court,” said Mr Franey, adding that the organisation he had difficulties with was the county council.

In a statement to the Irish Independent, Tipperary County Council said it maintains “clear and transparent criteria for succession to tenancy, ensuring that all applications are assessed fairly and in accordance with our policy in the housing allocations scheme”.

“Where a person does not meet this criteria for succession, Tipperary County Council is committed to ensuring that all other appropriate housing supports, in line with the individual’s eligibility, are made available. The council remains dedicated to providing equitable access to housing and to supporting individuals and families.”

Speaking after the hearing, Mr Franey said that he will now seek refuge in a nearby homeless shelter. He said he has not been offered an alternative by the council.

“That’s what I have to do,” he said. “It’s me and my partner, and sometimes my nephew stays, but he comes and goes.”

Mr Franey said he knew nothing about the gathering of people at the house in Elm Park. Stephen’s partner Aileen said she had stayed in the house when a group of concerned neighbours gathered in support.

“I understand there is a housing crisis,” she said. “There are people out there that need a house, but so do we.”

In January 2023, the couple say that they entered into what they believed was an agreement with Tipperary County Council, that if they vacated the three-bedroom house, they would be given priority for a smaller two-bedroom home.

“There were four of us in the house at the time of that agreement, in January 2023,” said Stephen. “We were passed for a two-bedroom, and we were in a three-bedroom. They said we were in a house that was too big. Before we came in here, we agreed, a verbal agreement, that we would vacate a three-bedroom home.

“The barristers were over and back two or three times. He came back and said, ‘if you hand back the keys of the three-bedroom house, they’re going to give you priority on a smaller two-bedroom house’. That was our understanding.”

The house became an issue about 14 months after Stephen’s mother died, in 2018.

“There was no letter,” he claims. “We were paying the rent. They were accepting the rent. We were a few hundred euro in advance. They were still accepting the rent up to yesterday.”

Stephen said they had also used the house to assist some young adults who had just left foster care.

Aileen said: “No, we have nowhere to go and, no, they are not offering us a two-bedroom house. At the time, there was loads of houses going up, so I don’t understand why.

“We’re not spongers. We don’t just expect things. We work hard. We pay our taxes. We look after people.”

The couple claim that the council stopped engaging with them after the agreement was made. The couple were made ineligible for five years for any two-bedroom accommodation. They have three more years before that five-year period expires.