“They’re made for dancing,” says Tessie Carroll, pointing to the high heels the woman inspects before leaving empty-handed. “Jaysus, if you brought gold here they’d want silver.”
Women who survived the laundries should be heard and heeded, when it comes to the Sean McDermott Street site, but local residents should be listened too as well, they say.
The council plans to sell it off to a private developer, as part of its strategy to create a super depot in Ballymun for its waste-management services.
It is up to the government to intervene to make sure an agreement for 900 social and affordable housing units in Poolbeg doesn’t unravel, said Dublin City Council Chief Executive Owen Keegan.
A government-backed effort to regenerate the area has been asking big firms at the International Financial Services Centre to hire locally. So far, it’s had limited success.
“What you have here is a late-19th-century design in a modern setting,” says local resident John O’Reilly, of the compact green and narrow roads around it. “So everyday it’s a clog.”
