This Thursday, residents of Cromcastle Court flats in Kilmore, supported by the Community Action Tenants Union Ireland, will hold a protest march calling on Dublin City Council to improve conditions on the estate.
The tenants say that their homes have been neglected for decades and that the delays to DCC’s plans for redevelopment are unacceptable.
A survey of housing conditions in Cromcastle Court has recently been carried out by researchers from Maynooth University.
According to the researchers, the survey results show that the vast majority of residents have serious unresolved maintenance issues, including being left with no hot water and heating, leaks, broken windows, pest infestations, rubbish not being collected and many other issues.
Dr Laure Detymowski, one of those involved in carrying out the survey, stated that: “Residents in Cromcastle Court have been left living in horrendous conditions for decades.
“We hope that the results of the survey will support the residents’ case that urgent action is needed to address this”.
In recent decades there have been a series of plans for redevelopment of Cromcastle Court, but these have been subject to repeated delays.
Residents of Cromcastle Court were first promised a major regeneration project in 2008 but those plans were dropped following the financial crisis.
Some residents had to be moved out of three of the blocks in 2018 after it was noticed that the stairwells were collapsing.
The most recent information provided by DCC is that ‘phase 1’ of the redevelopment of Cromcastle Court and the Old Coal Yard will not be completed until 2029.
In late 2024 construction work began on a new state funded housing project across the road from Cromcastle Court, which is a joint project between DCC and the Land Development Agency.
However, the new development will only include 13 social housing units and residents in Cromcastle Court have no guarantee that they would be offered these new homes.
DCC have responded to recent coverage of the poor conditions in Cromcastle Court by stating that a retrofit project was carried out in 2016 which included insulation, new windows and an upgraded heating system.
However, the Maynooth researchers who have been carrying out the housing conditions survey have highlighted that there were a range of serious problems with this project.
These include the fact that the front and back doors of most flats have never been replaced and are draughty and poorly insulated.
Residents are also unable to control the temperature in their flats and are sometimes left entirely without heating while on other occasions the temperatures can be extremely high.
There have also been numerous reports of problems with the windows installed during the retrofit project.
Footage posted by the Community Action Tenants Union at the weekend shows a window which had dropped out of its frame in a fourth floor flat, as well as another which had been nailed shut by DCC maintenance staff, raising concerns about fire safety.
The decision to hold a protest about the conditions in Cromcastle Court was taken by residents at a meeting organised by CATU last week.
Their demands are that all residents should be entitled to priority for a transfer to appropriate alternative homes if they want one, that all maintenance issues need to be addressed for those who want to stay in their current homes, and improved maintenance of the stairwells, playgrounds and bins.
The protest march will take place this Thursday, February 27, starting at 10.30am outside Block 2, Cromcastle Court.