What would become of the Civic Offices on Wood Quay if the council relocates?
After The Currency reported the idea of the council moving its HQ, councillors were talking about and thinking through the pros and cons and implications.
Solicitor Peter Boyle said he thinks many more tenants have strong cases they could take against the council, based on the mould and damp they are living with
Erika Dunne’s six-year-old son Ben has autism, a learning disability, and is nonverbal, and she needed a home she could adapt to keep him from hurting himself.
The council’s outgoing head of housing, Coilín O’Reilly, said that isn’t going to happen.
“How do kids integrate in a community?” says Niamh Fox, one of the residents. “It’s just not right.”
There are wider questions, too, about who has access to the many communal amenities at The Davitt, at what price – and how that fits with planning rules.
Unlike private-rental tenants, there’s no independent body for tenants renting directly from the council to complain to if their landlord isn’t meeting its obligations.
These were two of the issues that Dublin city councillors discussed at a meeting of their Central Area Committee on Tuesday.
“They have got to use the social housing that is currently available to get people out of homelessness, otherwise we are banjaxed.”
There are long waiting lists for childcare places, doctors and mental-health services, says Fiona Carney, interim CEO of FamiliBase.
“People have much richer lives, and they’re much more textured, and deep and emotional, and full of care, and struggles and heartbreak,” author John Bissett says.
Pitched as a measure to speed housing construction, opposition politicians say it’s unlikely to help much. “A solution in search of a problem,” one called it.
That’s the opposite of what Housing Minister Darragh O’Brien said in November was his plan.