{"id":242526,"date":"2025-12-20T09:34:11","date_gmt":"2025-12-20T09:34:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/242526\/"},"modified":"2025-12-20T09:34:11","modified_gmt":"2025-12-20T09:34:11","slug":"christmas-is-going-to-be-miserable-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/242526\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Christmas is going to be miserable\u2019 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cThis is not a very nice place to be spending Christmas<\/a>. I can\u2019t host, or bring anyone over here. Christmas is going to be very isolating and very miserable for me this year.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is how Oriel Corway (35) views life right now, living in a one-bedroom, flat-roofed studio in the garden of a semidetached house in Tallaght, Dublin 24, since 2023.<\/p>\n

The entire flat is covered in blotches of black mould, with puddles of condensation gathering under her bed and couch, and damp patches spreading over the ceiling and walls.<\/p>\n

She is dreading another Christmas here, and says that while she used to \u201creally enjoy the Christmas period\u201d, this year she \u201cdoesn\u2019t want to bother\u201d.<\/p>\n

The rent for Corway\u2019s home is \u20ac1,300 a month, with the majority of this covered by the Housing Assistance Payment (HAP). <\/p>\n

\"Oriel CorwayOriel\u00a0Corway at her rented home \"DampDamp and mouldy ceiling over the shower unit \"MouldMould on the wall <\/p>\n

The HAP scheme is designed for people on the social housing list and is paid directly by local authorities to private landlords. <\/p>\n

Corway, who is studying law at Maynooth University<\/a>, has repeatedly raised the situation with letting agent Ray Cooke, who manages the unit.<\/p>\n

Despite the agent sending out workmen on several occasions, the mould and leaks persist, and it has taken a toll on her health. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere were issues from the moment I moved in,\u201d Corway says. \u201cThere was no heating, no shower, there was mould already appearing once I moved the furniture around \u2013 they had obviously tried to hide it.\u201d <\/p>\n

Two years later and the situation has become far worse.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is mould everywhere, it\u2019s all over everything and it is probably all over me,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving a shower is a nightmare, because the bathroom is the worst. It\u2019s nearly kind of scary in there. You just want to get right back out again.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMy skirting boards outside the bathroom are like sponge,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

She has to pull out the couch several times a week to clean up puddles of water that gather there, and she has fallen in the kitchenette a number of times because of condensation on the floor. The situation is worse in her bedroom.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy bed is soaking wet, I have to dry it with a hair dryer some nights. Sometimes I wake up and I\u2019m soaking wet. It\u2019s no way to live,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n

\"Oriel CorwayOriel\u00a0Corway at home <\/p>\n

In May 2025 she paid for an engineer\u2019s survey on the property, seen by The Irish Times.<\/p>\n

The report found high levels of dampness and mould growth throughout the inside of the apartment. <\/p>\n

It also found insufficient ventilation, exposed live wires and poor weather sealing around the doors and windows. <\/p>\n

The report recommended engaging a damp-proofing specialist to resolve the issues, the removal and treatment of the mould and the rewiring of the unit. <\/p>\n

Corway\u2019s studio is owned by a company called Open Bridge Ltd, according to Land Registry documents.<\/p>\n

The director of Open Bridge Ltd is Glen Power, a founding member and drummer with the band The Script<\/a>. <\/p>\n

While the three-bedroom house on the site is registered with the Residential Tenancies Board, it appears Corway\u2019s garden studio is not. <\/p>\n

Researchers at the Houses of the Oireachtas have found that black mould, such as that seen in Corway\u2019s home, is more common in social housing and in households experiencing fuel poverty.<\/p>\n

This kind of mould in people\u2019s homes has been associated with poor health outcomes and an increased risk of chronic conditions such as asthma, according to the 2024 paper.<\/p>\n

\"Oriel CorwayOriel\u00a0Corway in her rented studio flat <\/p>\n

While there are regulations enforcing minimum standards for rented dwellings in Ireland, there is no explicit legislation to address the issue of mould. <\/p>\n

Local authorities are responsible for enforcing these minimum standards through inspections, and can issue improvement or prohibition notices to noncompliant landlords. <\/p>\n

The research concluded that other countries, such as the UK and France, had \u201cmore explicit regulations and robust enforcement mechanisms\u201d for addressing mould. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere is much to be learnt from the UK\u2019s approach, including the stricter timelines for addressing mould issues, enhanced enforcement through increased inspections and penalties for noncompliance,\u201d the paper found. <\/p>\n

It appears no such inspection by the local authority has taken place at the studio Corway is living in, and her health has deteriorated in the time she has lived there. <\/p>\n

\u201cMy breathing has gotten quite bad \u2013 my friends and family have noticed it \u2013 so I\u2019m going to see a specialist about my lungs, just to make sure there\u2019s no damage done.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s had a big impact on my mental health as well. It has had an impact on my dignity. It\u2019s isolating me. I can\u2019t have friends over. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a major contributing factor in the breakdown of my two-year relationship. My education has been so severely impacted, that one of my advisers at the university has written to the council on my behalf to try and get something sorted,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0\u2018My grandkids have breathing problems\u2019: Dublin City Council tenants protest over damp and mould issues in flatsOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

In the meantime, she plans to spend Christmas Day at her mother\u2019s house and try to get through the festive period with as little fuss as possible.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m hoping to just get my head down and study through Christmas and just kind of ignore the whole thing. Because there\u2019s nothing nice about it here.\u201d<\/p>\n

A spokesman for Ray Cooke, also speaking on behalf of Glen Power, said the landlord was \u201cis fully committed to have the issues resolved in full\u201d and has \u201cbeen looking at ways to keep [the] tenant in situ while works are completed\u201d.<\/p>\n

More than \u20ac9,000 has been spent trying to rectify the issue over the past eight months, he said, and the landlord has received his own property survey \u201cfor comparison\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cExtensive works are required to remedy\u201d the issues found and \u201cvacant possession will be required while works are completed\u201d, he said.<\/p>\n

The \u201ctenant will be offered the property back once works are completed\u201d, the spokesman said. <\/p>\n

South Dublin County Council did not respond to requests for comment. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cThis is not a very nice place to be spending Christmas. I can\u2019t host, or bring anyone over…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":242527,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[9,10,16838,18,13,14,6,19,17,3625,11,12,15,16,55206,5,24082,41035,50344,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-242526","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-christmas","11":"tag-eire","12":"tag-featured-news","13":"tag-featurednews","14":"tag-headlines","15":"tag-ie","16":"tag-ireland","17":"tag-kildare","18":"tag-latest-news","19":"tag-latestnews","20":"tag-main-news","21":"tag-mainnews","22":"tag-maynooth-university","23":"tag-news","24":"tag-south-dublin-county-council","25":"tag-tallaght","26":"tag-the-script","27":"tag-top-stories","28":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115751215376917485","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242526","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=242526"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242526\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/242527"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=242526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=242526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=242526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}