Cork City Council tenant seeks repair of damaged guttering on home

A month after Storm Darragh blew a length of loose asbestos roof guttering from his home, a social housing tenant is appealing to Cork City Council to repair the damage and prevent further dangerous collapses.

Martin Timmins, a 52-year-old council tenant who, with his wife, have lived for 23 years in a council house on Noonan’s Road, said he had been warning the council “for nearly a whole year” about loose asbestos guttering above the front and back of his three-storey home.

Early in December, during Storm Darragh, 16 feet of guttering fell three storeys from the roof at the back of his home, shattering a glass table on the patio, spreading debris across a wide area.

Mr Timmins said a similar length of guttering on the front of the house is also loose, and he is fearful that it too will collapse.

He said that during the week after the guttering from the back roof fell during Storm Darragh, he received a visit from three council workers who said they were there to assess the damage.

The workers cleaned up the debris and, he said, told him the repair job would go out to contractors, but could not say when it would be done.

Since then, Mr Timmins said, he has had no contact from Cork City Council.

He added that he had initially flagged the issue early in 2024.

“I’ve been complaining to the council that there’s an accident waiting to happen for nearly a whole year, and basically, I’ve been ignored,” he said.

“A [council worker] did come out, I think it was around April, he condemned the guttering, said that it wasn’t fit for purpose, he would contact his manager.

“That was a Friday, and on the Monday, a guttering contractor came out with two fellows. He asked the two lads would it be possible to do the job off of a ladder, the two lads said ‘No’, ‘Okay,’ he said, ‘we’ll need scaffolding’, and we never heard anything since.”

He said the collapse of the guttering during Storm Darragh had been “scary” and it was fortunate nobody had been hurt.

“It’s a mercy nobody was standing under it when it fell. My own children are grown now, but I have small nieces and nephews and we’re afraid to let them out into the garden,” he said.

“The guttering on the front of the house is badly damaged, the water is coming down on you as you’re turning the key in the door, you’re absolutely saturated, and we’re afraid that the guttering will come down.”

Mr Timmins said he was calling on Cork City Council to come to his house and repair the guttering urgently, “before someone is badly injured or worse”.

A spokesperson for the council said: “Cork City Council’s Housing Directorate is following up on all incidents of storm damage which occurred as a result of Storm Darragh, including this case, and will keep the tenant informed throughout the process”.