TWO WOMEN WHO were protesting over lack of suitable accommodation in Bray have resumed their sit-in at Bray Town Council’s offices.
Councillor John Brady, who had been taking part in the sit-in with the women when it was first held on Friday and Saturday evening, told TheJournal.ie that they were due to meet with Bray Town Council this afternoon.
The Sinn Féin councillor said that part of the agreement that ended the weekend’s sit in was they they would go to the council for a meeting at 2pm.
He said he and the women had returned for the meeting, “only to find the goalposts had been moved seriously”. He said that the women wanted him to be present during the meeting, but that the council did not want this. This has led to the sit-in taking place.
Cllr Brady said that private security are on the site and when he was speaking to TheJournal.ie said no other council staff were present, and that the building is “locked up”. The women are prepared to stay there until a meeting takes place.
Cllr Brady said the situation is not in the hands of the women, but “firmly in the hands of the local authority”.
“Unsuitable”
The meeting was organised in order to provide something more longterm in terms of emergency accommodation for the women. The women are unhappy with the accommodation they have been provided with, after presenting as homeless at Bray Town Council in recent weeks. Landlords told them recently that their leases would not be renewed on the homes they had been living in for the past number of years.
Both women have children, and say the hostel they were told to go to in Co Wicklow is unsuitable for them and their children, and is far away from one woman’s work, and the children’s school.
Cllr Brady said they have “no other option” but to hold the sit-in, and that their children have been put into the care of relatives.
Their protest this evening is out of “sheer desperation” and “lack of suitable alternatives”, he said.
A spokesperson from Bray Town Council could not be reached this evening for a comment.
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