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A BLIND WOMAN waited almost eight years on Cork Council housing lists before a housing association eventually found her a suitable home.
Lisa O’Sullivan, who has 17 different health conditions including diabetes, osteoporosis, and a rare liver condition, said, “I felt like I was in limbo for so long that I had almost given up on a house. I was stressed out and that didn’t help my conditions”.
She added that she had 16 per cent eyesight when she began the search for a home eight years ago but that deteriorated by a further eight per cent because of the “stress” of waiting so long.
O’Sullivan isn’t alone. Almost 100,000 households are currently waiting for a home in Ireland as demand for local authority housing increased dramatically, up 75 per cent since 2008.
Her search for accommodation all began when she was living in rented accommodation in Cork city that had stairs. When she realised her health, eyesight and mobility were deteriorating she decided to apply for social housing.
O’Sullivan was offered other accommodation in Cork city centre, but again it had stairs and no lift, so it wasn’t suitable as her osteoporosis meant she was a fall risk.
“That really annoyed me,” she said. “I submitted all of this information to the council and they came back with a house with a stairs. I even had a note from doctors stating that I cannot climb stairs… It just meant that I had to wait even longer.”
The only accommodation she could find was a house in Dunmanway, west Cork, an area where she felt “lonely”, “had no friends” and was 50 kilometres away from her terminally ill mother who lived in Dripsey.
“I needed to be near to my mother when she was diagnosed with terminal cancer two years ago,” she explained. “It was hard living so far away from her because all I had was my mum and my brother. She died on 1 March this year, so now I just have my brother.”
Dunmanway was also too far from her hospital appointments and the National Council for the Blind of Ireland where O’Sullivan visits weekly.
After six months in Dunmanway, a frustrated O’Sullivan was told about Clúid, a housing association. After two interviews with them, she was offered a home in an apartment block in Ballincollig.
Lisa O’Sullivan in her new home in Ballincollig, Cork. (Image: RTÉ/ Room Wanted)
It means she is near her friends, and nearer the city so she can access her hospital appointments and the NCIB, where she visits for counselling sessions, eye clinics, and to socialise with others.
“This is my home now and I’m thrilled,” she told TheJournal.ie.
“What I’m trying to do now is help others and pay it forward. I want to make more people aware of Clúid, Respond and other housing associations out there that can help people like me or people with low-incomes.”
She describes the wait for a house as a “nightmare” and says she doesn’t want others to have go through the same thing.
Clúid is one of the largest housing associations in Ireland, delivering 3,664 homes to low income families, single people, older people, people with a disability and Traveller families all over Ireland.
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Maybe Noonans logic is that if we keep pushing it further down the road, people might forget that we owe them money at all.
It worked for the Germans. They never repaid their reparations to the Greeks and others on reunification in 1990.
What comes around goes around………
The Greeks now claim the Germans owe them €162 billion with interest etc.
Why should the Germans be the only ones to receive a “get out of jail free” card?
Ireland and Greece did borrow a lot of money but at least we didn’t try to pull a Pinky and the Brain and ‘Take over the World’.
That is not that far off it.
The EU know that this debt is an immoral one and more importantly that Ireland cannot afford it and recover at same time. So it’ll keep being pushed out every few years, inflation will destroy the real value.
It is a default through time and inflation.
Can you imagine the Greeks running anything well? Shudder…
Is the loan interest free?
If the interest is greater than inflation then this is not good.
Gerard, you’re right, even if all their debt was written off they would still be a basket case.
The Germans / Scandinavians are so different to the Club Med countries.
The German attitude is “Make good stuff and take over the world.”
The Mediterranean attitude is “Open up another bottle of red and we’ll have a siesta”
The Irish attitude is somewhere in between:
Just look at the Spanish attitude to planning (how many people have been sold houses that are to be demolished?) or the Italian problems with organised crime in Southern Italy.
All the Club Med countries have problems collecting taxes that make us look like saints.
I’m not sure that any amount of EU directives can change this, so suddenly the Euro project looks to be fraught with inconsistencies forever.
The modern democratic system is at fault as its central promise is:
“you can have what you want even if it’s not good for you or your country.”
Hence the wrong ideas get the wrong people elected. But I don’t have an alternative…….?
You forgot to mention, most of the PIIGS are Roman Catholic Countries. now put that in your glass and drink it!
True Stephen, it’s the lazy but fun Catholics versus the hardworking but dull protestants.
We should’ve known better than most that it’d never work……….
Wow, so we don’t have to start paying back the loan until 2023. I always thought the repayments were done on a yearly basis and any extensions just lowered the yearly cost by stretching it over a further length of time.
So basically this Government, the band of Amigos, we’ll be long into retirement enjoying their pensions not worrying an iota about this set up. Filthy. Once we sort our national deficit I say ignore this obligation.
Germany benefits the most from the single currency, right now they’re the only benefactor, a few billion won’t destroy their country.
*will
Please god next crowd that get in will tax the crap out of there pensions
Can see Sinn Fein as the only party that would.
Ill vote for them so
I disagree Adam.. The single currency is the only thing keeping us afloat at the moment
KILLJOY: How is the Euro keeping us afloat exactly?
I would say it’s keeping us in some sort of coma.
It keeps our exports relatively expensive.
It makes imported goods from the Eurozone cheaper than they would be with our own currency thus putting pressure on domestic suppliers and causing money to leave the state.
It ties us into a blundering bureaucracy that cannot decide between the competing interests of debtor and creditor countries.
But it does keep our debt from spiraling out of control which it would with a devalued currency but then that depends on what currency your debt is in…………..If it were converted to the new currency then we could inflate it away.
Another 7 years of interest. Someone’s making money and it’s not Ireland.
Yay! They own us for another 7 years….Noonan there celebrating as if he cleared the debt!
When you consider inflation, whenever these payments get pushed back it means there’s less and less we have to pay back.
Exactly. This is a big saving. I wouldn’t be surprised if in years to come that it wasn’t rolled out further.
It is a managed and clean default. The value of the debt will be wiped out by inflation and written off in years to come.
It is more EU mirror and shadow play but at least this is some that will ease the wretched burden that was forced on us to protect German banks and FF’s Galway tent donors.
Don’t forget to adjust for the interest rate.
If you don’t the “less and less” becomes “more and more”.
That assumes that inflation doesn’t drop too low. If it does, it could end up costing us more. However, at current rates, this is a fairly big win for us.
We could do with a bout of high inflation (across the Eurozone rather than specifically in Ireland), as it would greatly reduce the real amount we have to repay.
that ball is gonna to too heavy to kick down the road soon!
The further this is kicked the better it is for the ordinary man on the street. Sadly it is not going to be written off at once but by deferring repayments the real value of the money will fall.
At this stage the money will just keep on being deferred till inflation destroys it.
Interest will inflate it.
Does your debt evaporation, good-news inflation equation mean that the harsh, punishing, life-sucking, service -cutting budgets will evaporate for the people of Ireland and especially for the poorest in society
No… Didn’t think so.
Alleluia. What an achievement mr financial Wizard Minister. So basically the same amount of pain but slower and longer. This guy will be writing his memoirs by 2023 sitting on fat monthly pension payments with his family sorted for life.
He will never know the anxiety felt by the ordinary man in the street. None of these so-called Ministers will. But it’s not this dimwits fault. It’s the dimwit Irish electorate who put such fools in to bat for them.
Have you heard of inflation? This is a good thing
So you’re hoping for more inflation, is that it?
Have people ever heard of inflation?
Seamus it’s an inescapable fact of life. Whether I hope for it or not it’s going to happen.
Inflation is part of the modern economy, has been for generations.
People saying that this means the same amount of pain but longer obviously do not have a bulls notion about money and do not have mortgages.
Inflation of 2-3% in most of Europe would be a God send for Ireland and the Pigs.
INFLATION! INFLATION!
hooray, the Irish are saved. Thank you Inflation.
Lou I live your attitude (though your not the only one). When good things happen it’s bad, when bad things happen it’s awful and the one thing we always need to remember is blame the incompetent government.
Yes everybody has heard of inflation. That is one of the reasons why lenders charge interest. Ireland btw is being charged interest.
Kerry, the other advantage is that the extension allows us some breathing room to try and get ourselves in a better condition before paying it back or issueing more bonds against the debt which increases our chances of not needing a second bailout and will help lower the rate of austerity.
My point was that it’s not the dimwitted Ministers/Governments fault. It’s our fault….and if we continue to elect the calibre and competence we’ve experienced the past decade then there will be very little good news for this country nor will it be deserving of such.
Please tell me Lou.. Who should i vote for??? Who out there will work 80 + hours a week for 110k, take abuse after abuse…. and never really get time off!!
I certainly would not do it…
So tell me…who should i vote for at next election..
So now the debt is doubled? Trebled?
What is the total payback including interest? I think this is the kind of thinking that fueled the property bubble in the first place.
“Oh, we’ll be saved by inflation!”
Not bloody likely. Your savings will evaporate (if you have any) and the price of everything you buy will rise. Your taxes will increase. Interest rates will reach 20%. Inflation is such a lovely thing, isn’t it? I’ve lived through it in the US. Be careful what you wish for, boys.
Inflation is a part and parcel of life nowadays. Inflation of 2-3% in Europe, while ours is 0.5 is helping restore our competitiveness and reduce the debt burden much more than austerity can.
Do you have a Mortgage, i’m guessing not otherwise you would have taken time to learn what things like this actually mean.
Any time debt repayments can be pushed further out is a massive boon to the person who has to pay. Unfortunately we are the ones burdened by traitors over the last 5 years but this is a way out.
This is a step in the right direction, not an overall result but a very positive step none the less.
Seamus you’ve missed the whole point.. Inflation won’t occur because we’ve pushed it back, we pushed it back because inflation will occur
have your say