People Trapped Nine Weeks in Ballymun Flats

[C. Flower]

Pickerings workers' strike against redundancy terms has left people in a nine storey block of flats in Ballymun without lifts.

For old people and women with small children, this means they have been trapped in their homes for all or most of the last nine weeks. RTE has finally reported this. A bit of a difference between this reportage and the wall to wall coverage of people wanting "emergency" passports to go to Thailand...

[Buddha]

Saw an "Apology" in the II yesterday saying that Pickerings actually had their contract dropped by Dublin City Council 9 months ago.

[C. Flower]

Saw an "Apology" in the II yesterday saying that Pickerings actually had their contract dropped by Dublin City Council 9 months ago.

RTE doesn't seem to have heard yet.
Any idea who is supposed to be fixing their lifts ? It must be a nightmare for the people living on the higher floors.

[Buddha]

No idea CF, but its always been the same there. When I worked in the Dáil I recall phoning up the on-site Maintenance Officer for a woman who claimed there was a rat in her flat.

"Not possible", he said, "the lifts having been working for 10 weeks". It always was a terrible problem. Especially when some tenants put horses in the lift!

Why elderly or ill people or people with little ones should be put into a high floor I don't know. Its appalling, its always been the same. One big joke. Pickerings used to do the lifts. But it was an awful bloody job. Yobbos not caring what hardship they brought on other tenants.

[Alamo]

How are they getting food, drink and medicine?

[C. Flower]

No idea CF, but its always been the same there. When I worked in the Dáil I recall phoning up the on-site Maintenance Officer for a woman who claimed there was a rat in her flat.

"Not possible", he said, "the lifts having been working for 10 weeks". It always was a terrible problem. Especially when some tenants put horses in the lift!

Why elderly or ill people or people with little ones should be put into a high floor I don't know. Its appalling, its always been the same. One big joke. Pickerings used to do the lifts. But it was an awful bloody job. Yobbos not caring what hardship they brought on other tenants.

Lifts are a problem anywhere unless there is a concierge/receptionist.
Councillor John Lyons blog here mentions the problem, but there's no detail.
http://cllrjohnlyons.blogspot.com/2010/02/ballymun-lifts-contractor-go-on-strike.html

[Buddha]

There was an unwritten rule that only those with no mobility problems, or with little ones should always remain on the ground floor or 1st. floor. Then tenants on these floors were presecuted by yobbos at night, smashing their windows, hammering on doors etc.


Its a problem in all flat complexes. A concierge would not help CF. He would be knifed before he got a uniform on. Seriously. Mind you, I am talking about 2002 before all the flats came down. Flats just don't work unless they are people friendly, protected 24 /7, and no one is going to pay for that. Apart from the fact that it takes only one family of anti-social bastards to destroy a whole complex.

[C. Flower]

There was an unwritten rule that only those with no mobility problems, or with little ones should always remain on the ground floor or 1st. floor. Then tenants on these floors were presecuted by yobbos at night, smashing their windows, hammering on doors etc.


Its a problem in all flat complexes. A concierge would not help CF. He would be knifed before he got a uniform on. Seriously. Mind you, I am talking about 2002 before all the flats came down. Flats just don't work unless they are people friendly, protected 24 /7, and no one is going to pay for that. Apart from the fact that it takes only one family of anti-social bastards to destroy a whole complex.

I've lived in a "flats complex" that had a bad reputation. Most people were fine and it was the most neighbourly place I've lived in.
I've also worked in North Cork City and west Dublin areas with a "bad rep". It's not the case that everyone on the ground floor in a flats complex gets their windows smashed in. If it was happening, the police should deal with it.

For years there has been virtually no policing of Social Housing areas. A quick drive through in a squad car, and be sure to wait half an hour before answering any incident report.

There were also serious policy errors, most dramatically the Grants to Buy scheme that gave virtually any tenant with a job enough cash to buy. This left the Social Housing areas in the mid 80s with a population of unemployed people and single mothers.

Oh yes, and the local Community Centres were all shut down in the cuts in the 80s, just as is happening now with the CDPs.

Bad public transport and too spread-out housing areas meant that trying to get to work or shops is a nightmare.

The problems aren't a mystery, and wouldn't take much money to sort out. The political will isn't there. Its much easier to scapegoat the residents.

[C. Flower]

RTE is finally onto this - for uo to 8 weeks, 180 families have been without lifts.
p
Pickerings terminated the contract. The Council after a while accepted that the contract is over. But what the **** is the Council doing about the lifts.
I'd make John Tierney go and life with his family on the top floor and see how he likes it.

People are having to carry prams, shopping, babies, dogs, up and down up to 14 flights of stairs. There are people who have heart complaints having to do this.

RTE doesn't seem to have got any comment out of Dublin City Council.

[moss]

More to this story today.



The injunction was obtained last week by Dublin City Council arising from the three- month dispute between the union and the lift maintenance company, Pickerings, over the redundancy of seven of its employees in Ballymun.
Ms Justice Mary Laffoy ruled the union had complied with the Industrial Relations Act 1990 by conducting a secret ballot and serving notice of intention to strike.
On that basis, she ordered the lifting of the interim injunction restraining picketing.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2010/0429/1224269286948.html

That's from yesterdays Irish Times.

Was reported earlier on RTE news the Irish army moved in today and fixed the lifts.

Quick action. Glad the lifts are fixed.

[C. Flower]

More to this story today.



http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2010/0429/1224269286948.html

That's from yesterdays Irish Times.

Was reported earlier on RTE news the Irish army moved in today and fixed the lifts.

Quick action. Glad the lifts are fixed.

I'm glad that people have working lifts, but using the army to break a strike is a bad precedent. How often has it happened before in Ireland ?