![\"Ted](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/5180059_17_articleinline_Ted_20and_20family.jpg\" "\\"Ted")
Ted and Carmel Tynan with their baby daughter Sin\u00e9ad after they moved into Glenamoy Lawn in 1971. They joined a tenants’ strike which lasted until 1976. Picture: Tynan family<\/p>\nVague promises of surveys and regeneration are not good enough, especially when council tenants living in substandard housing conditions have heard them all before, a southside Cork TD has warned.<\/p>\n
Of the city\u2019s currently occupied 160-or-so O\u2019Byrne flats \u2014 the three-storey 1960s maisonette balcony flats pioneered by the city\u2019s then architect, \u00c9amon O\u2019Byrne \u2014 90 of them are in Togher.<\/p>\n
The names \u2014 Clashduv Rd, Cherry Tree Rd, Sycamore Place, Hazel Rd, Maple Place and Togher Rd \u2014 may not have the notoriety of the now-condemned flats at Noonan\u2019s Rd and St Finbarr\u2019s Rd, but to a greater or lesser degree share the same problems.<\/p>\n
For years, tenants have complained of cold, damp, mould, crumbling masonry, and rodent infestations, and for years, local representatives have made their case to City Hall and Government Buildings, to little avail.<\/p>\n
Tenants in flats like Fort St and Dean St on the southside, and Baker\u2019s Rd on the northside will sympathise.<\/p>\n
In April, the then lord mayor, Fergal Dennehy, a Fianna F\u00e1il councillor in the south-west ward, said a recent meeting of the local area committee (LAC) with council officials had been \u201cmarked by a renewed sense of priority and urgency\u201d.<\/p>\n
Noting that problems with the dilapidated Togher flats were not new, Mr Dennehy said it was very evident that the O\u2019Byrne flats were well past their intended lifespans.<\/p>\n
Ted and Carmel Tynan with their baby daughter Sin\u00e9ad after they moved into Glenamoy Lawn in 1971. They joined a tenants’ strike which lasted until 1976. Picture: Tynan family<\/p>\n
\u201cThey now require decisive action, either through significant refurbishment and upgrading or, where necessary, full demolition and redevelopment.\u201d He added that councillors had been assured that surveys of the flats would be carried out and tenders issued for works \u201cwithin a very short timeline\u201d.<\/p>\n
The same month that the LAC took place, it was reported that a tenant in the Togher Rd flats had been treated in hospital after she woke up on Easter Sunday morning to find rat droppings on her pillow, and her eye swollen shut.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy vision went completely in that eye, and when I went to hospital they told me my blood pressure was jumping up and down, and my fingertips all went cold and numb,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The previous November, she had shown the markings on the inside of her toilet bowl where, she said, rats swim up to gain access to the home she shares with her four young children.<\/p>\n
Donnchadh \u00d3 Laoghaire, Sinn F\u00e9in TD for Cork South Central, said conditions in the flats were \u201ccompletely unacceptable\u201d and \u201ctweaking around the edges\u201d would not be sufficient.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe council are saying that they\u2019re going to do surveys of the blocks and the individual apartments, and as much as that is welcome, people in these flats have heard this all before,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we need to hear from the city council is: are they going to follow through on this? What are they going to deliver, and how are they going to ensure that we get proper regeneration of flats that are well past their sell-by-date?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"Donnchadh](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/5180062_17_articleinline_DENIS_20conf_204.jpg\" "\\"Donnchadh")
Donnchadh \u00d3 Laoghaire: ‘A lot of these residents are very proud people, they try to keep their homes in the best condition they can, but at the end of the day, structurally these buildings have gone well beyond what is acceptable.’ File picture: Denis Minihane<\/p>\n
Mr \u00d3 Laoghaire said that in several of the flats there were severe structural issues, and in most there were serious maintenance issues which were impacting upon the quality of tenants\u2019 daily lives.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of these residents are very proud people, they try to keep their homes in the best condition they can, but at the end of the day, structurally these buildings have gone well beyond what is acceptable.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe see issues with the maintenance of the balconies, with railings, with masonry, and those conditions are unacceptable. People pay their rent and they deserve a lot better,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
In 1971, as Ted and Carmel Tynan moved with their baby daughter Sinead into their new Mayfield home in Glenamoy Lawn, a tenants\u2019 meeting was being held outside, ahead of a planned rent strike.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had paid one week\u2019s rent to get the keys,\u201d Mr Tynan remembered, more than 50 years later, \u201cso, then we went on strike.\u201d That strike lasted until 1976, and Cork Corporation carried out seven evictions, among them the Tynan family.<\/p>\n
The firebrand socialist republican would later become one the most respected and popular members of the corporation\u2019s later iteration, Cork City Council, even if few of his colleagues ever shared his politics.<\/p>\n
Half a century after that rent strike, he would still be fighting for Glenamoy Lawn\u2019s tenants, and their neighbours in \u00c1rd Bhaile.<\/p>\n
There are 109 homes in Glenamoy Lawn and 157 in \u00c1rd Bhaile. Tenants have for years complained that the neighbourhood is \u201cinfested\u201d with rats, an issue exacerbated by a minority of residents dumping rubbish in Glenamoy Lawn\u2019s enclosed central green area.<\/p>\n
Almost a decade ago, Cork City Council replaced the old air-to-water heating system which had serviced the two estates, and which the council said was costing more than \u20ac200,000 a year to maintain.<\/p>\n
Between 2016 and 2017, the council installed an air-to-air system costing \u20ac4m, of which the council paid \u20ac800,000. Tenants have variously described it as extremely expensive to use, temperamental, and \u201ccompletely useless\u201d.<\/p>\n
In a 2025 report, the council acknowledged \u201cserious issues\u201d with mould growth and ventilation in several homes.<\/p>\n
In a related issue, tenants claimed rats were using the disused air-to-water heating system\u2019s pipes to move between the flats, with one resident describing it as \u201ca superhighway for rats\u201d.<\/p>\n
Last October, council tenants in Glenamoy Lawn and \u00c1rdbhaile voted to accept a council retrofitting plan.<\/p>\n
The pilot phase of that scheme would see 36 homes upgraded to a B2 or higher level of energy efficiency, with an average budget of \u20ac34,000 per apartment, and a maximum of \u20ac42,350. That would amount to a maximum cost of \u20ac1,524,600.<\/p>\n
The council said should the pilot prove successful, it will then bring the remaining 226 homes up to B2 level, to a maximum cost of \u20ac9,571,100, meaning the entire project could cost \u20ac11,095,700.<\/p>\n
When the council announced the pilot scheme last year, Mr Tynan said that even though the council had never admitted it had made a mistake with the air-to-air heating system, it was noteworthy that it had never introduced similar systems in any of its other properties.<\/p>\n
Ted Tynan retired in May, at the age of 83, and was replaced by his Workers\u2019 Party colleague, Jerrica Struthers.<\/p>\n
She said tenants in Glenamoy Lawn and \u00c1rdbhaile had endured almost a decade of uncertainty around their heating, and there was still no certainty as to when the works will be completed.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople voted for this new system more out of desperation than hope,\u201d Ms Struthers said.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople are just worn down with this situation where they\u2019re living in cold, damp homes, and they\u2019re spending a fortune on gas heaters and electric heaters because the heating system the council put in simply doesn\u2019t work.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ms Struthers added that although the council had recently sealed off the old boiler room and its interconnected rodent roadway, the estates\u2019 rat problem continues unabated.<\/p>\n
\n * This special report was funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Vague promises of surveys and regeneration are not good enough, especially when council tenants living in substandard housing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":582958,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[5658,79,6037,807,61,60,43],"class_list":["post-582957","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-irish-examiner-instagram","tag-cork-news","tag-cork-city-council","tag-housing","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582957","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=582957"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582957\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/582958"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=582957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=582957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=582957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}