Fortnight Publications Ltd.

Win on Points? The Story so Far in the Dungannon Housing CaseAuthor(s): Ian HillSource: Fortnight, No. 10 (Feb. 5, 1971), p. 7Published by: Fortnight Publications Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25543320 .

Accessed: 28/06/2014 19:07

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

.

Fortnight Publications Ltd. is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Fortnight.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 91.220.202.97 on Sat, 28 Jun 2014 19:07:48 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

FORTNIGHT 7

Win on

Points?

The story so far in

the Dungannon

Housing Case

ESSiSCDoa oodc |gS?|CQCD

C3T3C30

It must be difficult even for a Dungannon man to have any chauvanistic feelings about that

windswept untidy hillside town, and even in the area outside the town, the area which comes under the aegis of the Dungan non Rural Council, there is little that will please the eye. Houses, on estates built for rural coun

cils, are rarely things of beauty, let alone a joy for ever. Those in Dungannon Rural's Granville estate are not exceptions, but for

Mr. William Campbell, a sixty-six year old retired labourer of

Derrylapin, Branbrv, Dungannon, they have obvious "enough attrac tions.

Mr. Campbell's house at Der

rylapin had, and has, it's draw backs: it has no water supply, no

electricity, no lavatory or sanitary facilities of any kind. The roof leaks and so, not surprisingly, for this reason, if not for others, the house is damp. In this wee

palace live Mr. Campbell, his

wife and four of his children ?

Irene, ten, Leslie, who is five, Pearl, who is four and Desmond who is two and a half. Also in residence are his wife's two sons and her daughter-in-law. The house consists of two bedrooms, a kitchen and what Mr. Campbell described as "a stove." Mr.

Campbell has another daughter; she is deaf, dumb and partially blind. He himself suffers from both asthma and a resultant heart condition.

You can begin to see why Mr.

Campbell would like to have a new council house, no matter what it looks like. Mr.

Campbell, as we all know now, took an action in the High Court, against Dungannon Rural Council, over the question of housing alloca

tion, when he discovered that he had not been allocated any one of the 48 new houses in the Granville estate at a meeting of the Council on January 14. On

Friday, 22nd of January, Mr. Justice Gibson granted Mr. Gamp bell an interim

injunction pre venting the council from allowing tenants to take possession. It was

alleged in the affidavit that the Council had been in breach of the Ministry's points scheme for the allocation of houses, and also in breach of their own rules in

the manner in which they allocated the Granville dwellings.

Mr. Justice Gibson commented that the injunction would allow the council to come forward and

explain the manner in wfiich they had exercised their discretion in

acting in accordance with their

points scheme.

When the matter came before the Court again on Tuesday 26th,

Mr. D. Murray, Q.C., for the Council asked for an adjourn ment, and said that, lo and

behold, some nine of the original 48 allocatees did not now wish to take up their tenancies. Ac

cordingfy, he said, that those nine houses which had had

prospective tenants from the 14th to the 22nd of January, but

which over the long weekend of the 22nd-25th had become vacant,

would be reallocated at a Council meeting on February 14th. Mr. Murray also revealed that Mrs. Val Kennedy, the housing ma nageress, would then recommend "on the basis of her investiga tion" that Mr. Campbell qualified for a house and should be given one in Granville.

He did not at that stage remind the Court that Mr. Owen

Nugent, a member of the

Council, had, in a sworn affida

vit, said to the Court only four

days previously that Mr. Kennedy had fold him Mr. Campbell did not qualify for a house. Mr. Justice Gibson adjourned the

hearing till Monday, February 1st so that the Council's answering affidavits could be studied by Mr.

Campbell's representatives. On

Monday 1st there was a further

adjournment so that Mr. O'Donnell, for Mr. Campbell, could study, in particular, Mrs.

Kennedy's affidavit. It will be studied in detail, for in Stormont on

Tuesday, 26th January, Mr. Brian Faulkner said that council lors were not allowed to inter fere with the points system.

Houses, he said, were, allocated

by the housing manager.

So the case continues, and is therefore sub-judice, and rightly cannot be commented upon.

However, whatever the outcome of Mr. Campbell's action against the Council, it is certain that the

Council has not heard the last of this kind of matter. It has, as The Democrat, one of the local weekly papers in the area, pointed out, in a delicate phrase,

many "devoted opponents. After all, as any schoolboy can tell you it was a band of "devoted

opponents" of the Rural Council who set off on the first of the Civil Rights marches, the one from Coalisland to Dungannon, over the question of housing allocations by the same R.D.C. in

Caledon. It was in Dungannon R.D.C. territory therefore that the Civil Rights campaign saw it's first successful launching.

This content downloaded from 91.220.202.97 on Sat, 28 Jun 2014 19:07:48 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions