A 45-year-old Dublin woman with metastatic breast cancer and sharing a bedroom in her parents’ house with her two young children has said she has exhausted all options in seeking a suitable home.
Sharon O’Connor has been approved for the homeless rate of Housing Assistance Payment (HAP) and has been on South Dublin County Council’s housing list since 2017. Last year, she was approved for medical priority on that list.
Despite this, the separated mother and her two children, Brian (11) and Aria (9), have been living intermittently in her parents’ home in Blanchardstown, Dublin 15 since 2023, unable to secure suitable accommodation.
In between stays in Blanchardstown, she and her children have couch-surfed at friends’ houses. The children split their time between both parents.
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Two years of searching for private rental homes has yielded no results. No offer of housing has been forthcoming from the council, Ms O’Connor says.
Speaking with The Irish Times this week, Ms O’Connor says she feels she has exhausted all options in trying to seek a suitable home.
“I feel like I’m constantly fighting, trying to find ways [to find accommodation] ... I just don’t know what to do,” she says.
Her illness has added significant complications to her situation, she says.
Ms O’Connor was initially diagnosed with breast cancer in 2019. In October 2023, it was discovered that the cancer had metastasised, or spread. Ms O’Connor says she will require hospital treatment for the rest of her life as a result.
On occasions, she is too unwell to drive her children from Blanchardstown to school in Firhouse, in Dublin 24, she says.
“There’s been days where I’ve had to decide between taking my anti-nausea or my anti-sickness medication, and driving the kids [to school], because that medication can make me woozy.”
Her diagnosis also leaves her at greater risk of infection, she says. Sharing a bedroom with her children – Ms O’Connor and her daughter in one bed, her son in another – is “a lot less than ideal” with a lowered immune system, she says.
Recently, a combination of stress and illness arising from her cancer treatment and housing situation has prompted Ms O’Connor to take prolonged sick leave from a charity she is employed at.
“The stress of constantly chasing down, trying to chase the council, trying to get answers, trying to find private rentals, as well as trying to be Mammy, trying to cope with the side effects of my treatment, it all just became far too much,” she says.
Earlier this year, following a three-month stint couch-surfing at a friend’s house, Ms O’Connor considered seeking accommodation through emergency homelessness services.
Reluctantly, Ms O’Connor decided to move back to her parent’s home. She says her children do not know they are homeless and wants to protect them from this.
“I’m incredibly grateful that despite it being not ideal at all, for my parents, from their point of view, that we do have a roof over our heads. But it’s not sustainable,” Ms O’Connor says.
“I just need a home. We need our own home,” she adds.
Ideally, Ms O’Connor is seeking a home close to where her children are attending school in Firhouse.
“The school is such a good support to the kids ... It’s the only piece of stability that they’ve had the last few years. I’m desperately trying to keep that for them,” Ms O’Connor says.
She says she was slow to go public with her experience, for fear of her story being used by far-right agitators to fuel anti-immigration sentiment.
“That put me off going public for a while, because I don’t want that to feed into it ... There’s a fault at Government level – the buck has to stop there, not anywhere else,” she says.
