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MARGARET BAKER LIVED for most of her life in the flats in Ballymun, before they pulled them down.
After that, she moved to an apartment in Poppintree where she lived for six years.
“I lived in the flats all my life in Ballymun and then they pulled down our lives,” said Margaret.
“Then I moved there… It was horrendous. Horrible. Everyone knocking at your window. I had nothing to protect my window from the footpath.
It was so loud all the time, I couldn’t even watch television.
This week, Margaret sat in the community room of her new apartment complex in Ballygall – close to Glasnevin and Finglas in north Dublin.
She moved to this new complex in 2015, and hasn’t looked back since.
I wasn’t alive for six years, then I started living again when I moved here.
Fold Ireland
Margaret’s new home is part of a development of recently regenerated apartments in the area.
Social housing body Fold Ireland redeveloped a number of old Dublin City Council flats for elderly people, which were first built in 1969.
The flats gradually deteriorated throughout the years, before the council decided to empty them in the mid-2000s.
Sarah Duggan (64), who also lives in the complex, used to live in the old flats for 12 years.
“I lived in that block. Oh my God. It was tiny, absolutely tiny,” she told TheJournal.ie.
“You had your kitchen, your bedroom. your living room all in the one room.
I used to call it the cell. This place have given me a new lease of life. It’s completely different
Fold initially had a plan to regenerate the flats in the late 2000s with 100% financing from the then-Department of the Environment (now the Department of Housing).
However, the project was put aside due to the severe nature of the economic downturn in 2008 and funding drying up.
In 2014, the charity began a regeneration of the complex after it was able to access private funding from Bank of Ireland as well as CALF (Capital Advance Leasing Facility) funding.
Community
Today, the once-run down complex has been transformed into 50 modernised and fully accessible apartments housing a community of 78 older couples and individuals.
Fold recently won the top prize at the community Irish Council for Social Housing’s 8th Biennial Community Housing Awards.
The apartments are for the elderly (roughly, over 55) and focus on facilitating and encouraging independent living as much as possible.
“They’re are designed for people to age in,” said head of development and housing Tina Donaghy.
Because we move people in there doesn’t mean to say they’re elderly or infirm. The accommodation just meets their needs now and into the future.
Each apartment is equipped with a Telecare unit – a remote care alarm system through which residents can call for assistance if they need help.
Each resident also has a fob that allows them to operate a gate to allow cars in and to work the lifts.
Sarah and Margaret both said they felt safe and secure in the complex.
Margaret has been working on starting up a residents’ social club, to coordinate community action and events, while Sarah has also gotten to know other residents and made good friends.
Groups from the complex regularly go across the road to the Quarry House pub to play bingo.
One man has been working on a community garden that cuts through a portion of the complex.
Community care is at the heart of Fold Ireland’s philosophy. It’s mission statement is to:
Provide the best housing, care and support to those in need of such services.
Tina Donaghy said that the organisation plans to expand to provide safe, secure housing for people in need.
As the interview finished, Margaret and Sarah both rushed off in opposite directions. Margaret went to work on plans for the social club, and Sarah was taking a weekend trip with 13 other residents to Waterford.
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It was a mistake to give him anything
@Barry Somers:
The mistake is how they will fail to spin this.
They need to get childish.
Call him President Climbdown, President Shutdown, President Treason – anything to provoke him. Do that enough and he’ll lose it. Just need to swing 5% of moderates.
@Brinster: so tell lies.
@Barry O’Hanlon: None of those would be lies.
@Barry Somers: it’s probably just a refurb of existing picket fences.
@Brinster: it’ll work too. He refused to hear the details before going on stage in El Paso. That way he could bluster on while not being 100% sure he wasn’t getting the wall
You couldnt build a hospital for that amount…
@Eoin O’C: Lol
@Eoin O’C: president trump would with change too.
Why? Don’t you think that a country has the right to protect its borders?
@Michael: yes it does but this wall won’t protect them and it’s bad value for money (to put it mildly). It’s also going to cause environmental havoc in the local ecosystem. Bad idea all round.
@Michael: Not everyone wants a hard border, in case you hadn’t heard.
@James Wallace: How will it cause environmental havoc?
The wall will protect the border, it’s not just a barrier we’re talking about, Cameras, sensors and infrared.
@MinMin: It will go right through areas filled with wild life. How can it not cause environmental havoc??
@MinMin: “The wall is not just a barrier.” And so begins the spinning of his failure to deliver.
They should build a massive 40ft high wall around Trump.
Wait for it….Orange Man Bad :-I
@PC Principal: And by the way, his approval rating is now at 52%. Even Democrats are coming around
@PC Principal: proof?
@Craig Clancy: it was a poll done by right wing pollsters.
@PC Principal: … in one poll that has consistently overstated his support. His average approval is 40%
@PC Principal: Worst trolling ever. Stop being silly.
@Paul Furey: Sorry to have to correct you. “The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Monday 11th shows that 52% of Likely U.S. Voters approve of President Trump’s job performance.”
http://www.rasmussenreports.com, hardly a pro trump polling company.
@Paraic: that’s from January 17th. Nice try though.
@Shane Dignam: Ehh, it is actually.
@Dr. X (Official Continuity Faction): It is what?
@Shane Dignam: a polling company that consistently overestimates Republican support, ie is pro Trump.
@Shane Dignam: that’s the one I was talking about.
@Shane Dignam: sorry but you could at least get it right. Your link says 50% approve and 37% strongly approve while 40% strongly disapprove.
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/rasmussen-reports/
This’ll be the same deal grom last november. Never any need for the shutdown
He will spin it as a win. And his zealots will believe him.
@A2 Poster: The Dems will spin it as a win and their zealots will believe them. Meanwhile the Dems are contributing more funds to the wall/barrier,- they’re no longer sitting on the fence.
We need a Trump
The art of the deal in action, form President “executive time”
Border security settled for the same 1.3Bn Pelosi offered him before the shutdown. All that mess for nothing.
So I guess you can keep half the illegals out now? Or how does it work.
have your say