“We didn’t realise it was this serious”. Stand-off escalates in Cork housing estate over mobile home row

Monday marked the fourth day of the housing estate residents' protest.

Residents of a Cork housing estate are continuing their stand-off this Monday following a long-standing issue involving the estate's green area and a mobile home. A stand-off ensued on Friday, which saw local residents protest the arrival of a mobile home onto their communal green area via a truck on Thursday evening. It is understood that the mobile home is owned by members of the travelling community. The estate residents attempted to reclaim the communal area over the weekend as they believe the home should be for the use of estate residents only. According to locals, this isn't the first instance of unwanted vehicles being left in the vicinity against the will of residents. A small caravan had also been residing in the same area for the past two years. Legal proceedings began some months ago to get the caravan removed, but to no avail. The bigger mobile home was then introduced to the housing estate earlier this week, causing tensions to grow amongst residents. Those who live in the housing estate want the truck that brought the mobile home into the estate to leave with the mobile home back on the truck. However, as the mobile home is situated on the green belonging to Cork County Council, Gardaí cannot force anyone to move it until the council issue a court order to do so.

Tensions are running high in the estate, as the residents continued the fourth day of their stand-off on Monday. They are currently blocking in the truck with their cars which delivered the mobile home, only promising to clear the way should it take the mobile home with it.

They have also recently put together a petition for the mobile home's removal which, at time of writing, now boasts over 1,000 signatures. Councillor Noel McCarthy spoke to Patricia Messinger on C103’s Cork Today Show on Monday afternoon about the issue, stressing the peaceful nature of the block-in and going into detail on the seriousness of the situation. "There was a meeting arranged by Chairman of the Council Frank O'Flynn for all the elected representatives in the Fermoy Municipal Authority to arrange a meeting with the Director of Housing to meet him and his team to discuss the situation that happened in Beechfield," McCarthy said. "We outlined the details to them and they said 'we didn't realise it was this serious'. "The Director of Housing spoke to the legal team in County Hall as that they were hopefully going to get an injunction next week, which is this week now, to get both caravans removed." He added that he hoped the injunction to remove both caravans would be issued by the middle of the week. "There's a right way and a wrong way of doing things. "We have 400 people on the housing list here in the Fermoy area, if everyone did what's happening here, we'd have no control and no system. They should have worked within the system, with Cork County Council Executive and I'm sure it wouldn't have come to this," councillor McCarthy continued. "You cannot just put a caravan into a green area hoping that you're going to get a house out of it, that's not the way it works." Adding to the mobile home issue is a split which has occurred between existing estate residents – those taking part in the stand-off and those that are not. JOE contacted Cork County Council, who announced they they have "no comment at this time."