SURVIVORS of a fireplace at a shelter in Carrickmines pleaded with council chiefs, “Give us rooms for our children. “
Family members were relocated to Dublin, where 11 of their relatives, plus five young children and an unborn baby, died in the October 2015 fire.
Our images show 4 bungalow-style houses that were built on the hellish site of Glenamuck Road in south Dublin after the local council sent a circle of relatives to Carrickmines.
But seven years after the tragedy, distraught relatives now reveal that one of the pads has rooms for their children.
In an interview with The Irish Sun, grieving Dan Connors, whose brother Thomas died in the crisis, made an impassioned appeal to council leaders for help.
Dan, a father of three, told us: “Where the tragedy happened on Glenamuck Road, the council built a new reception here for us.
“We have all kinds of problems. Now I have 3 small children and I still don’t have a room for them.
“My brother Jim has five children and has a space in it but there are no rooms.
“My sister Kathleen doesn’t have a room either. What’s the point of a roomless space?
The tragic Thomas Connors, 27, his wife Sylvia, 25, and three of their children, Jim, five, Christy, two and Mary, five months, perished in the hell of 2015.
Sylvia’s siblings, Willie, 25, and Jimmy Lynch, 39, also died in the disaster, along with Willie’s pregnant partner, Tara Gilbert, 27, and daughters Kelsey, four, and Jodie, nine. At the time of the tragedy, Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council engaged with the survivors.
Relatives were first housed in five cell homes set up along the city corridor in a parking lot in Ballyogan.
The council then took them back to Carrickmines, to newly built houses with fireplace walls.
Nearly 20 family circle members are living lately in the four houses on the Glenamuck Road site.
Young orphans Tom and Mick Connors, who lost their parents and 3 of their siblings in the fire, are among those living in the homes.
Dan’s mother, Jo, who cares for the two orphaned children, has an extension with rooms in her space on the site. But the other 3 spaces were left without.
Dan told us, “There are 4 spaces here and the space that has rooms here is my mother’s.
“In one of the houses without rooms, there are five children, my brother Jim and his husband, there are seven in one house. There are no rooms. Then there’s my sister, her husband and her son. And then me, my husband and my 3 children
Dan recounted how council leaders said rooms for parents would be added to homes.
He said: “When we first moved here, they said in 4 years we would have the rooms. Of course, that was five years ago.
Speaking to The Irish Sun, Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council said it would take another two years before houses were upgraded in preventing Tig Mo Chroi on Glenamock Road.
A spokesperson told us, “The Council’s 2019-2024 Traveler Lodging Program sets out the steps we will take to fulfill the existing, long-term lodging wishes of traveling families in the county in the era covered by the plan.
“It is proposed in the program to update the existing day at Tig Mo Chroi in 2024. “
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