Father Peter McVerry using a flat in the Thomas McDonagh Tower in Ballymun as a shelter for homeless boys.
Dublin Corporation has a litany of complaints against the hostel set up by Father Peter McVerry including overcrowding, causing an intolerable nuisance, and alienating the local community.
Three bedrooms housing between 10 and 15 homeless boys.
Local politician Seán Ó Cionnaith and secretary of the residents' group says that while nobody supports eviction, they have been troubled by the amount of terror and vandalism coming out of the hostel.
Fr McVerry pleads guilty on all counts to the Corporation’s charges against him and the hostel. He says the situation is simply intolerable for everyone.
Father Peter McVerry (1991)
While residents do not like the trouble associated with the hostel, they do admire and respect Father Peter McVerry. Seán Ó Cionnaith believes that the blame lies with the government who he says appear to have money for everything except for youth accommodation like the hostel in Ballymun.
Dublin Corporation says that it has to act on complaints from residents. Noel Carroll of Dublin Corporation believes that you do not solve one problem by creating another.
The type of service or operation that Father McVerry has been providing has caused major problems in the area.
These challenges are nothing new to Father McVerry who last year defended the specific case of a 15 year old boy who had not been provided with suitable accommodation. The teenager is now being cared for in a Dublin flat by three social workers.
The Eastern Health Board have failed to find that child accommodation in a suitable hostel and they have been obliged to resort to this method of looking after him simply because they have nowhere for that kid to go.
Fr McVerry is determined not to leave the hostel in Ballymun until alternative accommodation is provided.
They’ll have to haul me off to jail for disobeying the court order.
An RTÉ News report broadcast on 15 January 1991. The reporter is Alasdair Jackson.
