THE REGENERATION of dilapidated 1950s flat complex Dolphin House is “years away”, Dublin City Council has told residents who are living with persistent sewage and mould problems.
Tests carried out by Tobin Consulting Engineers on water that had come up through the plug holes of sinks and baths in the council flat complex found the levels of faecal coliforms were consistent with those found in raw sewage.
However, acting assistant city manager Martin Kavanagh yesterday told residents the waste water back-up found in sinks and baths did not contain “toilet waste”, according to city council engineers.
“The issue is with the waste water pipes and not the foul waste pipes. This means that toilet waste is not coming out in people’s bath and sinks. Both systems are entirely separate and only join together underground under the blocks.”
Mr Kavanagh said he had received these assurances from the city engineers before he was aware of the details in the Tobin report and he would ask the engineers to review its contents.
The Tobin tests detected faecal coliform levels more than 570 million times the safe level for drinking water in the sinks and baths. The level of coliforms was “exceptionally high” and was consistent with “partially treated and untreated sewage waste”.
The report, commissioned by Barnardos on behalf of residents’ group Rialto Rights in Action, was presented yesterday at a follow-up to a “human rights hearing” held last May on the conditions in the flat complex. Irish Human Rights Commission president Dr Maurice Manning last May said the State and city council were breaching a UN convention on social rights by failing to provide adequate housing conditions for residents of Dolphin House.
The meeting yesterday heard living conditions had deteriorated further since last May.
The percentage of tenants reporting damp in their flats had increased from 72 per cent to 77 per cent. Reports of mould rose from 64 per cent to 66 per cent. Reports of “sewage invasion” and sewage smells fell slightly from 89 per cent of tenants to 77 per cent.
Mr Kavanagh said the council had over the summer instituted a programme of “rodding” to clear out waste-water pipes, which had resulted in fewer complaints in relation to sewage blockages.
Two corroded waste-water pipes had been identified as being in need of full replacement and estimates were being sought for their replacement.
However, Mr Kavanagh said the regeneration of the complex was not a prospect in the short or medium term.
“There is no point in me coming here and giving false hope . . . The regeneration of Dolphin House is years away and has particularly been put longer away by everything we’ve heard in recent days in relation to the State of the economy.”
The council had last year appointed an architect to devise a master plan for the regeneration of the estate. However, the project was now “years away and in the middle of a queue” of regeneration projects, Mr Kavanagh said.
Minister of State for Equality Mary White attended the meeting and said she would work to resolve the residents’ issues.
