Image: Shutterstock Image: Shutterstock THERE IS A very serious risk from fire to the lives of dozens of Romanian children and adults squatting in a Dublin city centre flats complex, a judge in the Circuit Civil Court was told today.
“Fire detection systems have been disabled, fire extinguishers removed from corridors and a fire alarm expert sent to reconnect fire safety devices fled for his life through a window after having been locked up and intimidated by squatters who believed he was there to cut off power supplies,” O’Sullivan told the court.
O’Sullivan said there had been a near riot outside the property on Saturday evening last with fights having broken out between some of the squatters. When Mountjoy Station gardaí were called to the scene the trouble-makers had locked themselves back in the building and the gardaí had adopted the attitude that the squatting was a civil and not a criminal matter.
Kilraine said he had been gradually emptying the building of legal tenants with a view to refurbishing residential units and selling the property after interest had been shown in it by a potential purchaser. Units he had boarded up after previous tenants had voluntarily moved on had been broken open.