'No emergency accommodation offered' to family of eight evicted from rental home in Donegal

Gabriel Lopes and his wife.

A FAMILY OF eight, including six children, say they have not been offered emergency accommodation after being abruptly evicted from a rental home in Co Donegal.

Father of six Gabriel has spoken about the distress experienced by him and his family, who are now temporarily staying with friends in Sligo, after they were evicted earlier this month.

The Irish Examiner first reported this morning that the family were evicted without notice from their rented accommodation in Donegal, where their belongings were allegedly removed on the evening of 12 March.

The videos from the eviction have sparked widespread commentary on the situation the family has now ended up in.

In the videos, which were published by the Irish Examiner, a man can be heard telling the family that the electric, water, and “everything will be turned off”.

Belongings stuffed in black bags and located outside of the house are visible in the clip, as well as a a baby’s chair.

‘Ten minutes, yeah, ten minutes to sort your family,” a man is also heard saying.

Children are heard crying in the background of another video, while a man walks past carrying a chair, and another says “You do realise when the guards come, if you don’t take care of the children, they will take the children away”.

A man asks Gabriel in another video clip, if he is a “bully”, claiming that his “children and wife are crying”, “every night”.

The man also claims that he has recordings of them “crying” from a “recording device”.

The family alleges that the locks were changed on the house, and the family were told they had to leave and that a local hotel room had been booked for them for that night, but when they arrived at the hotel there was no room reserved for them.

As it stands, the family alleges that they have not been offered emergency accommodation despite multiple local councils having been informed of their situation.

Gabriel, who works in a local hotel, told Newstalk’s Lunchtime Live programme, that he and his wife do not know where they will go with their children after Friday, when they have to leave their friends house.

Local Fine Gael councillor Sinead Maguire, who also spoke on the programme, got involved with the case because she knows the people that Gabriel and his family have been living with for the last two weeks.

Gabriel, speaking on radio this afternoon, said that four men, including the landlord, entered the house in Donegal through the front and back doors.

“The landlord said I hadn’t paid the rent, but I had the transfer confirmation on my phone,” he said.

Speaking to The Journal this evening, he said that the family still has no accommodation secured for beyond this week.

Councillor Maguire said, in her view, there was a “lack of response from the Gardaí,” who were called to intervene during the eviction.

Maguire added that she has contacted Sligo County Council, and she has learned that currently “there isn’t emergency accommodation available for the family”.

The Fine Gael Councillor said that this eviction had “nothing to do” with the eviction ban.

“All of [the family’s] legal rights were denied,” she said, in reference to the family’s claim that they had received no eviction notice.

When asked by Newstalk’s Gilligan if she believed there was a chance that the family would end up out on the street at the end of this week , Maguire said that she hoped not, but she didn’t know.

Gabriel said that he and his wife, who works as a cleaner, love living in Ireland, and want to continue to do so so their children can ‘study here and learn English”.

The landlord who owns the property that Gabriel’s family were renting has told The Journal that he will not be commenting.