DUBLIN CITY Council has said the heating was functioning in the flat in Ballymun where a young mother of two died of hypothermia.
Rachel Peavoy (30), Shangan Road, Ballymun, Dublin, was found dead in her home during a cold snap on January 11th, 2010, an inquest on her death has been told.
At a hearing of the inquest in January, pathologist Anthony Dorman, a consultant histopathologist at Beaumont Hospital, found she had hypothermia.
Counsel for Ms Peavoy’s family, Dr Ciaran Craven, told the inquest on that occasion that there was “ample evidence in relation to the heating not working”.
At a resumed hearing of the inquest yesterday, Dublin City Council engineer Brendan Furlong denied that the heating in Ms Peavoy’s flat was turned off, saying it was working at the time of her death.
Mr Furlong, a senior executive engineer specialising in heating, ventilation and air-conditioning, said a weather compensation system was in place at the Shangan Road flats and the heating was only disabled when outside temperatures reached about 20 degrees.
However, he said air temperatures could be lowered and heat lost by an infiltration of air into a flat, or a neighbouring flat. “There could be a dissipation of heat and lowering of temperatures if an adjacent flat had infiltration through draughts etc.”
Mr Furlong said a fitter had visited the flat on December 15th and noted a temperature of 17 degrees.
The fitter attributed the low temperature in the flat on this visit to vacant flats next to and below Ms Peavoy’s flat, Dr Craven said.
A letter from Dublin City Council to then minister of state for housing Noel Ahern said the council was aware of complaints made about heating on November 11th and 18th 2009.
The letter said a reading of the temperature in Ms Peavoy’s apartment was “found to be below desired levels”.
The inquest also heard how representations were made by a school liaison officer and a GP at Dr Aidan Morris’s practice regarding the cold in Ms Peavoy’s flat.
Garda Catriona Byrne told yesterday’s inquest the flat was “freezing cold”.
She said: “We’d come in from outside where it was very cold as it was snowing outside. The flat was freezing cold.”
Dr Dorman told yesterday’s inquest that hypothermia was the cause of death, in his opinion. He said he had found nothing abnormal in Ms Peavoy’s anatomy during the postmortem. Her brain was normal, and there was no significant heart disease. However, he said, Tramadol and other medications including benzodiazepines were present in her blood and may have caused the young woman to fall asleep in cold conditions.
Ms Peavoy had been taking the medication for anxiety.
Ms Peavoy had last spoken to her mother, Celine, the day before she was found dead. She had asked her mother to take care of her two sons, Leon and Warren, and said she was turning her phone off because she couldn’t sleep.
The next day, after numerous unsuccessful attempts to contact Ms Peavoy, her brother, Leon Peavoy, and friend, Jacqueline Johnston, let themselves in to her flat. Ms Johnston found the body of her longtime friend in the main bedroom.
Area housing manager in Ballymun Donal Barron told yesterday’s inquest he was told by Insp Andrew Waters that the windows were open in the flat at the time of her death.
Dublin city coroner Dr Brian Farrell adjourned the case after Dr Craven said this was new evidence. The case was adjourned until Wednesday April 6th.