DARREN KELLY is standing in what was the kitchen of his two-bedroom apartment in Priory Hall. Now with the fridge, cooker, and washing machine removed, it’s just a shell of a room.
“We had to take all the appliances out, we’re on the ground floor. I’ll be boarding up the windows as well. I’m afraid the place will be ransacked. We were told there would be security . . . but we were told a lot of things that have never been done.”
Mr Kelly and his father Tony are packing the last of their possessions into a van ready for the move to a bedroom in the Regency Hotel in Whitehall, 9km away, while his wife Melissa takes care of their three-month-old daughter Sophia and three-year-old son Evan.
“It’s a totally unsatisfactory solution when you’ve kids. The first we heard that we were going to the Regency was yesterday. We don’t know where we’re going from one minute to the next.”
The apartment building is currently uninsured and Mr Kelly said he has yet to investigate his position with his bank in relation to the mortgage. “Everything is up in the air. There’s so much we don’t know at the moment, but what we do know is that self-regulation and unscrupulous builders have got us into this situation.”
Stephanie Meehan bought a two-bedroom apartment with her partner Fiachra Daly for €296,000 four years ago.
“The problems started as soon as we moved in. We were flooded numerous times, the window sills had to be replaced, there’s mould growing on the outside . . . I could go on, but I’ll start to rant.”
Now having moved into a room in the Regency Hotel with their six-month-old daughter Cerys and five-year-old son Oisín, they’re encountering a whole new set of problems, Ms Meehan says.
“We didn’t take him to school today – there was just too much going on, but we can’t keep that up obviously. It’s going to take an hour in traffic.”
This is just the start of the difficulties of living in a hotel room, she says. “We got here last night and we’re now in our third room. The first one was damp, the TV didn’t work in the second, and that sounds like a small thing but when you’re trying to keep a five-year-old occupied, it’s not.”
However, she says, it’s not the room or the hotel itself that’s the problem, it’s the logistics of a family of four living in one room.
“One room for four of us isn’t adequate. People are being totally unrealistic thinking we can live here for five weeks. I haven’t thought about how I’ll wash the kids’ clothes. Really we need to be in another apartment. We’re totally in limbo here.”
Looking after their eight-month-old daughter Katie in a hotel presents particular difficulties for Clare-Ann Geraghty and Daniel Smith.
“We had to take her into Temple Street the other day. It turns out she has an egg allergy, so I want to be cooking everything for her myself, but you can’t do that here. We can’t even sterilise bottles,” Mr Smith said.
The couple were renting in Priory Hall, through an agent acting on behalf of builder Thomas McFeely. While they don’t have the worry of owning a condemned property, Ms Geraghty said they are equally trapped. “We paid a month up front and a month’s deposit and we can’t get them back from him. It’s like chasing a bee across the floor, you’re never going to catch him.”
The couple are unemployed and have been told by the Department of Social Protection they can’t get a new deposit until the current one is repaid. “No one seems to know what to do with our situation. If it was just us we could take it, but not with a child.”