Laoise Neylon

6 days ago | dublininquirer.com | Laoise Neylon

Three of the four Dublin-area councils didn’t use a fast-track system for funding social housing for any of the homes that they built last year. To access funding for new social homes, councils usually have to go back and forth with  the Department of Housing, through what is known as the four-stage approvals process. The system has come in for regular criticism as slow and bureaucratic, taking, on average, more than 120 weeks, and so creating long lead-in times for new homes.

6 days ago | dublininquirer.com | Laoise Neylon

“Having private, for-profit care goes against all you are trying to achieve for children in care,” says Terry Dignan, a spokesperson for the Children’s Residential and Aftercare Voluntary Association, representing the charities that run children’s homes, among other services. There is a major shortage of placements for kids in care, so some are being moved around between emergency placements.

1 week ago | dublininquirer.com | Laoise Neylon

The government is looking into whether to ask the Land Development Agency to build more private housing on public land banks, according to a 28 April Irish Times article. However, the Department of Housing hasn’t responded to a query sent Tuesday, asking in what circumstances it envisages that the LDA would develop private market-price homes on state lands.

1 week ago | dublininquirer.com | Laoise Neylon

Advocates for survivors of industrial schools, from Sage Advocacy, met with council managers from across Ireland this week to ask them to consider prioritising industrial school survivors for social housing. Getting social housing priority significantly speeds up the process of getting a social home. Damian O’Farrell, a former Dublin city councillor who is now a project manager with Sage Advocacy, says the state has a particular responsibility to survivors of the industrial schools.

2 weeks ago | dublininquirer.com | Laoise Neylon

Much of Park House on Ashdale Road in Terenure is a building site. A cement mixer whirrs in the garden. A sign warns of the need for helmets and protective footwear. But Margaret Bergin still lives with her partner in an apartment on the ground floor in the west wing of the big brick house with a gabled roof – as they have for about a decade, she says. Earlier this year, they got a notice to quit on the grounds of substantial refurbishment.