Government failing one of the country’s largest flat complexes
- New Trinity College study highlights worse health outcomes for Oliver Bond Residents due to poor housing conditions
Labour’s Senator Rebecca Moynihan (Dublin South Central) and Cllr. Darragh Moriarty (South West Inner City) have called on Government to urgently address poor housing conditions in Oliver Bond following publication of the study by Trinity College Dublin and Robert Emmet Community Development Project.
The study used data from local GP’s and found that Oliver Bond residents are 2.4 times more likely to suffer from respiratory issues, such as asthma, compared to neighbours in the Dublin 8 area. This builds on a previous survey of residents carried out in 2021 which found 83% of households reported damp and mould issues in their homes.
Senator Moynihan said:
“There are almost 400 homes in Oliver Bond. It is one the largest and oldest remaining flat complexes in the State, with over 1,200 people living and breathing in this community. This latest report from the Trinity College, working with a local community development project, shows how damaging poor housing conditions can be for the health outcomes of some of our most vulnerable and marginalised social housing tenants. The Government is trumpeting over shiny new developments and at the same time are presiding over existing dilapidated social housing in urgent need of regeneration.”
Cllr. Moriarty, who sits on the Oliver Bond Regeneration Board, said:
“It is truly shocking and stark to see the findings of this study laid out. For years and years, the tenants of Oliver Bond have called on Dublin City Council to urgently address the damp, mould, condensation issues in their homes. We now have the medical evidence to demonstrate their homes—the place where they eat, sleep, live, bring up their children—are of such poor quality that they are contributing to worse health outcomes for them, compared to the surrounding Dublin 8 population.”
“I have sat on the Oliver Bond Regeneration Forum since its establishment in October 2021. Since then, Phase 1 of the project, which would only upgrade 3 out of 14 blocks in the complex, hasn’t yet progress past Stage 1 of a 4-Stage approval process with the Department of Housing. While that process is going to take us well into the 2030s before the regeneration itself is completed, we cannot allow the residents to live in the current horrendous conditions in the meantime, which we now know, are leading to worse respiratory health outcomes. We also have to do everything in our power to speed up the elaborate regeneration process so that we can deliver regeneration schemes faster and more efficiently.
“The inertia I have seen in addressing this issue is unacceptable. Government urgently need to provide the funding and infrastructure to empower our local authorities to move quickly and regenerate existing social housing stock. Dragging their heels and passing the book between departments and authorities has serious consequences and real people and their health are the collateral damage.”