Local families in Waterford face eviction this week
Michael Sheehan, CATU Munster Organiser, addressing crowds outside Ocean View House, Tramore last month.
Just weeks after 14 families living in direct provision in Tramore received eviction letters, various families with small children in Waterford City have now also been told to vacate their accommodation at the Birchwood Direct Provision Centre, in Ballytruckle, by this Thursday, August 15.
The families are integrated into the Waterford community, with the children attending local schools, involved in clubs and the adults working in jobs locally and starting local businesses. Many of these families have been told that they will be moved to Clonmel.
A spokesperson from Community Action Tenants Union (CATU) Waterford said: "Having attempted to seek accommodation in the private rental sector across the country, many of them over the course of the past two or more years with little, or no, availability in the sector they have been unable to find anything.
"The families have already come through so much hardship and suffering in their struggle to achieve refugee status. They are now facing the intolerable situation of having nowhere to live and being ripped from the communities they have integrated into and contribute to."
