In Portrane, residents of HSE-owned cottages fear for their future

As Paschal Knight walked from the living room to the kitchen, the air chilled. “It gets so cold here in the winter,” he said.

When he lights a fire in the sitting room of his cottage on Portrane Avenue, the heat is just fine, he says. “But for me to walk into the bathroom, I might as well be walking into an ice box.”

For 34 years, Knight was a care worker in St Ita’s Hospital in Portrane. He retired eight years back.

And, for the best part of those four decades,  he has lived in different cottages along the avenue leading into the late 19th-century psychiatric facility, and his former employer – the Health Services Executive – has also been his landlord.

He and the other residents in cottages have tenancy agreements with the HSE, says Labour Councillor Corina Johnston. “And the tenancy agreements say that the HSE are responsible for maintaining those houses.”

But Knight says that the HSE does next to no maintenance. “They do the roof and gutters.”

He upgraded the windows himself, he says. “I actually put a bit of insulation in the hall out there. I got it all plastered, and the rain poured in.”

The pale green walls in his hall are covered in tea-coloured stains that look like old bruises.

These cottages need to be renovated and upgraded, says Johnston. “A lot of the houses are in dreadful, dreadful conditions. Cold. Damp. They need to be insulated.”

None of the residents have taken any case to the Residential Tenancies Board, she says. “The residents were of the understanding that the only avenue open to them would have been to file a complaint to the ombudsman.”

Knight, and some of his neighbours who also live in cottages owned by the HSE, would prefer that the council took over the running of their homes, he says.

But councillors say that charting a route to that, under current schemes, has been a struggle. “Those people are in limbo,” says Johnston.

A spokesperson for the HSE did not address queries about how it maintains the properties, or whether it is making any arrangements with the council to transfer over ownership.

The council currently owns 14 of the 24 cottages on Portrane Avenue, and the HSE Board has said that it has plans to transfer the remaining ones over to the council as and when they become vacant.

Limboland

Fourteen of the cottages on the street are already owned by Fingal County Council, said a council spokesperson said on Tuesday. These are being, or have been restored, after having been vacant for a long time.

Ten other cottages, including the one Knight rents, belong to the HSE, and, which a 2022 HSE Board document says it will seek approvals in the future to transfer to the council as they become vacant.

Another idea, put forward by the Social Democrats Councillor Paul Mulville, is that the HSE put in place a tenant-purchase scheme.

Tenants could then live there more securely, he said at the Balbriggan/Rush-Lusk/Swords Area Committee meeting on 14 November.

Johnston says, though, that there’s no mechanism in place for the HSE to implement such a scheme.

Mulville had asked the HSE to open up a scheme like this before.

In June 2023, he had asked the same via a motion at the area committee.

And, he got a near identical response from Nikki Halleran, a senior executive officer in Fingal’s Corporate Services.

If the motion passed, the terms would be forwarded to the HSE, her report said. “When a reply is received the Area Committee shall be informed.”

But the HSE hadn’t given a satisfactory answer when the council wrote to them in June 2023, Mulville said. “They just ignored the motion and spoke about the fact they are handing over the vacant cottages to the council.”

Existing tenants in the HSE-owned cottages don’t have any proper security of tenure, Mulville said.

It’s a legacy issue for the Portrane Avenue residents who’ve been left in “limboland” for a decade, said Johnston, the Labour councillor. “The HSE are responsible, and should be forthcoming, providing some sort of tenant purchase scheme, or engaging with the residents, which hasn’t happened to date.”

It seems that they can’t do a purchase scheme, Johnston said.

Transferring to the council?

While some of those in the HSE homes would like a tenant purchase scheme, others want to become council tenants, says Mulville.

“But really the current situation is very unfair and they really feel forgotten about to a certain extent,” he says.

Labour Councillor Brendan Ryan also pointed to the possibility that the HSE could transfer the properties to the council.

But, said Mulville, a barrier to that is that some residents don’t fit into the social housing income limits, Mulville said. “There needs to be a mechanism put in place, whatever it is, to facilitate the residents here.”

Johnston says the HSE have stated, as a part of their tenancy agreements, the residents are supposed to be on the council’s housing list.

A HSE spokesperson did not comment when asked on Monday what existing tenancy arrangements it has with the current residents.

Mulville, at the area committee meeting, said one issue is that the residents don’t fit within the social housing income limits, “which should preclude them from becoming council tenants, which is another issue that needs to be overcome”.

In his cottage on Monday, Knight sat in his armchair with a stack of Fingal County Council documents in his lap.

The living room was already decorated for Christmas. An episode of Casualty was playing in the background.

He has been trying to get on a list for council housing, he says. “But I got a letter back saying where I am is habitable.”

He had wanted to move into one of the refurbished council-owned cottages across the street, he said. “And then they’d take over here. But unfortunately they don’t own these yet.”

He produced a letter from Fingal’s Housing Support Unit, dated late last November. It said he wasn’t eligible for social housing as he was already adequately housed.

“It’s scandalous,” says Johnston.

The council, the HSE and the Department of Housing are in ongoing discussions around the future use of the St Ita’s campus, Johnston says. “If that happens, what is going to happen to these people?”

There are retired hospital workers living there for up to 40 years, and residents with medical issues as well as families, she says. “It’s a very difficult situation. They’re being let down.”