In Rathmines, the remaining residents of the Defence Forces’ married quarters live in mouldy limbo

The ground-floor windows of 17 and 18 Grosvenor Lodge, two semi-detached homes, were boarded up and covered with graffiti, on the second last Friday of May. 

The council has been investigating whether to add parts of these buildings, which are owned by the Department of Defence, to its derelict sites register.  

But there are signs that someone’s living here. A white flexible pipe attached to a dryer dangled out of an open window on the first floor.

One of the front doors on the front doors is nailed shut and decorated with tags. The other swings open. 

A four-year-old boy peeks out and grins, before closing it again. A few moments later, he returns, and opens it up. 

The boy darts up the carpeted stairs, passing his mum, Susan Coyle, who is standing at the top of the landing.

These apartments were married quarters for members of the Defence Forces who were doing their service next door in Cathal Brugha Barracks. 

Coyle says her dad was a sergeant, and she has spent her whole life living in this flat. But after he died in 2011, her status here became increasingly complicated – and the condition of the flat has declined, she says.  

The people living downstairs died about 10 years ago, those homes were left vacant, and damp and mould has risen into her house, Coyle says. 

“It’s horrendous. The cobwebs are literally from the top to the bottom. I’m living over that,” she says. “We constantly have rashes.” 

When she has approached the council to get rehoused, they couldn’t offer her an alternative, because she’s already got something, she says.

But really, she wants to be able to stay here. It’s her family home, she says. “My kids are here. My life is here. I’m 39 years of age. I’m not leaving Rathmines. But I don’t want my kids going to a hostel,” she says.

A spokesperson for the council did not respond whether it has any intentions of taking charge of the Married Quarters in Grosvenor Lodge.

A Department of Defence spokesperson didn’t respond when asked whether it was going to carry out any works on the first floor to prevent issues like mould.

Nor did they say what plans they had to improve the vacant flats on the ground floor.

Sale falls through

The first-floor flat that spreads across numbers 17 and 18 has been the Coyle family home for about 50 years, Susan Coyle’s sister Patricia Coyle says as she leans against the kitchen sink.

The department made moves to sell the married quarters to the occupants, including the Coyles.

It had been department policy since 1988 to sell off the 12 homes in the quarters, Fianna Fáil TD Willie O’Dea, then the Minister for Defence, told the Dáil years ago.

In 1997, the quarters were offered for sale to the occupants, O’Dea said. But because the homes were interlinked, they all needed to be sold off at once or none, he said.

“At that time it was made known that the quarters would only be sold if all of the occupants agreed to purchase,” he said. That didn’t happen.

For Coyle, the plan was that, when she turned 18, that they would sell her the property, she said. “That fell through.”

She made a second attempt at buying the flat about six years later, she says. But that didn’t come to pass either.

Then nothing happened.

After their dad died, though in 2011, the Department of Defence stopped taking the rent, Coyle says. “As soon as the fathers in the houses started dying, they stopped taking rent because they can’t take it out of their wages anymore.”

They offered to pay the rent numerous times to maintain the home, she says. “But they didn’t take the rent because we were supposed to be buying them.”

Declining conditions

On that recent Friday, in her kitchen, Susan Coyle produced a series of photos. 

They showed damp ceilings, mould on walls, rainwater coming through over the electrical box in a utility closet.

Then, she produced a letter written on her behalf at the start of May by a member of the Holy Family Conference of the Society of St Vincent de Paul. 

It said the heating in the flat was poor, and that condensation in the wintertime was causing mould to grow on the walls, Coyle’s children’s clothes and the furniture.

The mould issues started to spring up when Coyle was pregnant with her son, she says. “He’s four. [The Department] spent a good bit on the house.”

The Department approved emergency works to the value of €28,000 in 2021 to address issues reported at that time, Fianna Fáil TD Micheál Martin, then Minister for Defence, said in the Dáil, in January 2023, in response to a quest from Sinn Féin TD Chris Andrews.

But then the mould came back, she said. “We had it for two and a half years. My kids had Christmas in the hall and in the kitchen, because we had no sitting room.”

Back in April, the department had sent workers out to repaint the walls and lay down a new carpet, Susan’s sister Patricia Coyle said in an email on 2 May. 

“The boiler and roof, however, were not addressed, leaving the house vulnerable to mold and dampness again when winter comes,” Patricia Coyle said.

In the corner of the kitchen on Friday, Susan Coyle points out that yellowing stains are already appearing underneath the fresh coat of paint.

Then, she left the kitchen, walking through the hallway on the landing, past a pair of bedrooms which didn’t have any doors.

She arrived finally at the utility closet. The ceiling was still blackened by mould growing over the electricity box.

What next?

Back in January 2023, Martin told Andrews that members of the Army who were allocated one of these homes, and then either retired or left, were meant to return them vacant.

If the property wasn’t vacated, those still living there were classed as overholding, meaning they were staying in rented accommodation after a tenancy termination date, Martin said.

Referring to an unnamed female occupant, Martin said the Department of Defence didn’t have any agreement which allowed her to remain there. 

“And the occupant was informed in writing that she does not have my Department’s consent to remain there,” he said.

But, when maintenance issues were brought to the attention of the Department regarding properties “occupied by overholders”, matters of a health and safety concern were dealt with, he said.

In June 2024, following an inspection by the council’s Derelict Sites Unit, the council opened an active file on 17 and 18, and 23 and 24 Married Quarters, Grosvenor Lodge, a council spokesperson said. 

The council told the Department of Defence the next month that the properties were being considered for inclusion on the register, Tánaiste Simon Harris told the Dáil on 5 February in response to a query from Fine Gael TD James Geoghegan.

The Department had met with the council with a view to transferring the properties over the local authority, Harris said. “This offer remains open.”

But none of the properties can be occupied without considerable refurbishment and were built before the Building Regulations came into effect, he said. 

“An assessment has also been ordered to ascertain their suitability to a return to modern single living in accommodation usage for serving personnel,” Harris said. The Defence Forces are expected to deliver a report on this, he said.

The following month, Harris, responding to another inquiry from Labour leader and TD Ivana Bacik, on 25 March, said the report was recently submitted to the Department for assessment.

Once Department officials and Defence Forces had considered the contents, they would submit recommendations to Harris on what works need to be done on the homes, he said. 

It would be ideal if the council could take over these houses, Coyle says as she descends the stairs, walking across the driveway.  

Maybe they could even temporarily move her family someplace else while downstairs is sorted out, she says. “Then, just give me back the house that’s built here.”

“I would like to stay,” she says.