AN OVERWHELMED family is living in a three-bed Council house with just one toilet, trying to get by with up to 13 people in a situation reminiscent of scenes from Angela’s Ashes.
55-year-old Collette Quinn and her husband, Gerard, their daughters Rosaleen and Leanne, son Shane, and six grandchildren, along with two others who stay with their father at weekends, all share the home at Griffith Avenue in Ballinacurra Weston.
“It’s not easy. It can get very stressful at times,” Collette told the Limerick Post.
The stressed grandmother described her sleeping arrangements as herself and her husband sharing one room with two of their grandchildren in bunkbeds, a heart monitoring machine, and a sleep apnea breathing machine which was introduced since Collette had a heart attack recently.
Her daughter Rosaleen sleeps in the box room with two of her children in the one bed, and her baby of 10 months in a crib slightly bigger than a Moses basket intended for a newborn.
Her other daughter Leanne sleeps in the third bedroom with her child, while her son Shane sleeps on a blow up mattress downstairs, with a second blow up mattress as a bed for four children when they come to spend weekends, two at a time.
Asked if the situation was akin to conditions described in Angela’s Ashes, Collette replied: “Well, the Walton’s have nothing on us.”
“Rosaleen has been on the housing lists for nine years and Leanne has been on the list since 2019, but neither of them have been offered any house, anywhere,” the told the Limerick Post.
“They have said they are willing to go into emergency accommodation but I don’t want that to happen. It’s not fair on the children”.
Collette has numerous health issues and has to take more than 20 kinds of medication every day.
She’s also worried that the conditions in the house are difficult on her husband, who works in Tait House, and her son, who works in UHL.
Rosaleen told the Limerick Post that she has been trying to fit a proper cot into her tiny room because “the baby fell out of the crib. I barely caught him. The only way to do it is if I squeeze sideways to get into the room.”
“It’s heartbreaking – my daughter is nine and she says all the girls at school havr their own rooms – why can’t she? She wanted a sleepover for her birthday and I had to say no – where would I put them?”
Fianna Fáil TD Wille O’Dea has been trying to help the family, and told this newspaper that “in all my years as a political representative, I’ve never seen such overcrowding”.
“I’ve spoken to the Council and I’m assured there is no reason, no anti-social behaviour or criminality or anything like that – that would prevent any of them getting a house. It just hasn’t happened and they are living in a terribly stressful house which is no good for anyone”.
The Limerick Post contacted Limerick City and County Council for comment, but none was received at time of going to print.
