Council plan stalls as tenants refuse to move

Dublin City Council's plans for a multimillion redevelopment of the former tenements at York Street are being stymied by the refusal of the last residents to leave.

Three residents, all members of the same family, were still living on York Street yesterday, three weeks after they were due to move to new apartments provided by the council.

The tenants, the last of several hundred occupants who once lived in York Street flats, say they have no intention of leaving. Instead, they want the block refurbished.

Frances Timmons, her daughter Carol Maguire and sister Joan have remained on in their separate apartments in spite of the removal of their furniture and numerous efforts by council officials to get them to move.

Council officials have boarded up Joan's windows and cut off her phone and television connection, according to Carol. "It's very dangerous. She has to keep the light on all day as she has no natural light."

In the building in which Carol and her 72-year-old mother live, a steel door was erected last week to block off the rear of the building from the garden.

"We still had clothes on the line which we couldn't reach and the cat got locked out. I was so mad I took the thing down myself."

"There'll be war if they try to block my windows," she added.

Asked why they were refusing to leave, Carol said: "I think we find it difficult to go, after 47 years on the street. I don't know what it will take to get us to move."

The council has sold one-third of the site to the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland for €12 million, while it plans to build 66 social housing units on the rest of the land. However, demolition work cannot begin until all the buildings are vacated.

As for people who feel the three women are holding up progress, Carol has this to say: "Stuff them. If progress is evicting people from their homes, then stuff progress. It's all about greed and business money and we don't count."

The council says the vast majority of tenants on York Street were happy to move out and many have been told they can return to the new houses.

"We might be a minority," Carol responds, "but we're the minority who have lived here all our lives. The others weren't here that length of time; many were brought in by the council to run the place down."

The city council denies this accusation.