“So the council is allowing horses in Dublin City,” says horse owner David Mulraney. “But they’re not allowing them to put their horse manure anywhere.”
Since June, there’s been a shift in how the Department of Justice has ruled on these applications – more rejections, says immigration solicitor Imran Khurshid.
“It’s not that the people who live there don’t have cars,” he says. “It’s that the neighbourhood is not a car park, and the car parking is on the edge.”
It can anger the landlord, and alert the council that it shouldn’t be paying to subsidise rent for such a place – and risk leaving the tenant homeless.
Peter Byrne was refused an adjournment he asked for on medical grounds. His landlord, after saying it hadn’t had time to review the case, was granted one.
Ciara Hill has lived without a working shower or toilet, with mould and a broken front door, and a lingering dread that she will end up back where she was a few years ago – homeless again.
The council is making smaller improvements now, while working towards a major regeneration sometime in the future. Residents say that’s just not good enough.
There’s a cohort earning too much for social housing, but too little to qualify for the Land Development Agency’s new cost-rental “affordable” housing schemes.
Councillors at a recent meeting said they still have concerns about how well the council is protecting tenants from neighbours engaged in serious intimidation and drug dealing.
