Cork city residents hit out at 'disgusting and degrading' conditions

CITY Hall has been urged to clean up an idle property that has become an 'obscene' dumping ground, with residents left to face 'disgusting and degrading' conditions.

Denis O’Keeffe has lived in The Glen since 1972 and said that after 49 years in the area, the conditions that greet him at his front door are “just obscene”.

A derelict house is being accessed through a walkway between Arderin Way and Mangerton Close and is being used as a dumping ground by fly-tippers.

The house has been left derelict since its last residents moved out in November of last year which Mr O’Keeffe said has become a “safety hazard”.

“It’s a corner house and it’s after being wrecked, front and back. The garden is full of rubbish and along the gable end wall of the house is an active gas pipe above ground.

“All it takes is a kid or a teenager and a slap of a concrete block or anything, and the whole thing will go up.

“I worked offshore for years at oil and gas exploration and I know the dangers of gas, especially an exposed pipe like that,” he said.

Mr O’Keeffe has expressed his concern to Cork City Council which he said has fallen on “deaf ears” to date.

“There’s fly-tippers everywhere and people see an opportunity to get rid of their rubbish. It’s wrong, I don’t agree with it but if that house was properly maintained when it became idle, we wouldn’t have the problem now.” 

Mr O’Keeffe also expressed concern for the upkeep of the area, concerns which he said City Council are “well aware of”.

“There’s a bank of grass outside my house that goes the length of the six houses and it hasn’t been cut this year, it’s about a metre high.

“City Council have actually cut the grass coming in from the main road so that anyone passing will see the grass cut but come in off the main road to where I’m living, and it’s like a kip.

“The rubbish, the height of the grass, the state of the place and I haven’t even got a response from them,” he said.

He said that there is “no means of communication anymore” between the people living in the area and City Council.

City Hall was contacted for comment.