Cork tenant waiting almost a year for Council to fix dangerous asbestos guttering

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

Martin Timmins is a 53-year-old council tenant who, with his wife, has lived for 25 years in a house on Noonan’s Road.

On December 6 last year, during Storm Darragh, 16 feet of guttering fell three storeys from the roof at the back of the house.

It shattered a glass table on the rear patio and spread debris across a wide area.

At the time, Mr Timmins said a similar length of guttering on the front of the house was also loose, and he was fearful that it too would collapse.

Mr Timmins told The Echo he spent much of 2024 warning the council about loose asbestos guttering above the front and back of his home.

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.

This week he said he feels the council has ignored his concerns.

“I haven’t heard anything since I made that complaint after the storm, and I’ve been ignored since then,” he said.

“Months before the storm, a council worker did come out, I think it was around April last year, and he condemned the guttering, said that it wasn’t fit for purpose, he would contact his manager.

“That was a Friday, and the following 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’; ‘OK,’ 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,” he said.

“My own children are grown now, but I have small nieces and nephews and we’re afraid to let them out into the garden.

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

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

In December of last year, 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”.

This week, the council said it does not comment on individual cases, adding that its customer service request centre is available to all tenants to report repair requests, which, it said, are then addressed “by the relevant housing operations staff in order”.