600 families living in one-bedroom units

More than 600 families with children are living in one-bedroom accommodation owned by Dublin City Council, figures obtained by The Irish Timesshow.

The highest concentration of such housing overcrowding is in the north and south inner-city.

The figure could be as high as 800 as statistics are not broken down to show whether any, or how many, children are in each one-bedroom dwelling.

However, the figures apply only to properties owned by the council and do not include families living in private rented one-bedroom dwellings, often paid for with the assistance of rent supplements from the Department of Social and Family Affairs.

When asked for statistics, under freedom of information legislation, on how many families were in one-bedroom dwellings the city council indicated there were 3,441 people in council-owned one-bedroom dwellings.

This corresponds to some 2,353 families, according to the council.

It said 1,550 are single-person households, 594 are two-person, 149 are three-person, 48 are four-person, ten are five-person and there are two households where seven people are living in a one- bedroom dwelling.

The council goes on to state that 638 of its one-bedroom properties are headed by a single, divorced or widowed parent with children.

The highest concentration is in the north inner-city, with 182, followed by the south inner-city with 180.

The city council houses 92 single-parent families in one-bed dwellings in Ballymun, followed by 47 in Ringsend/Irishtown, 43 in Pearse Street and 28 in City Quay.

Among those affected is Tara Pepper (32) who lives with her partner and two children, Lee (10) and Craig (9), in a one-bedroom flat in Ballybough, north inner-city.

"We've been here for six and a half years," she says, showing the small bedroom with bunk beds against one wall and a double bed against another.

The room just about accommodates a wardrobe and a chest of drawers.

"I can't get a desk or anything else in," she said.

Craig and Lee take turns to use the coffee table in the living room to do their homework each evening.

Among the other stresses the overcrowding causes, says Ms Pepper, is the fact that she has to keep the boys out of the bedroom when she dresses and increasingly she feels she should stay out when they dress.

The boys cannot have friends in to play in the room; if they argue neither has private space to calm down; she and her partner have no privacy; there is a huge lack of storage and she keeps many possessions in her mother's home.

She has applied for a transfer to a two-bedroom dwelling but has been told she will have to wait between eight and 10 years.

"Oh, it does stress you out. It affects my relationship with my partner," she added.

She said the children are always asking when they'll get their own room.

Local Labour Party councillor Aodháin Ó Riordáin, who sits on the council's planning and strategic policy committee, said the number of families in this situation was increasing because the council was allowing developers to "buy their way out of their Part V obligations [to provide social and affordable housing]".