Celine died in Spanish escape from ‘Little Beirut’

THE flats complex has been dubbed Little Beirut by some locals.

Celine Conroy and Paul Hickey were two of only a handful of people still living in the condemned flats in Dublin’s north inner city.

Sean Treacy House on Buckingham St Upper is a three-block complex with only six or so flats still occupied.

The rest are boarded up, many of them ransacked by drunk youths and addicts.

The complex is riddled with damp and is reported to be rat infested. The bleak stairwells stink of urine and rubbish is strewn everywhere.

Dublin City Council is demolishing the flats and rebuilding houses on the site. Councillors say the flats were supposed to have been demolished over two years ago.

Ms Conroy continued to live there with her three young children and her boyfriend.

It was from here that they flew out to Spain to spend a two-month holiday in a luxurious villa in a complex south of Alicante.

They are reported to have stayed there for two months every year for the last three years.

The chalet, thought to cost up to €200,000 to buy, is thought to be owned by Mr Hickey’s father Paul Ainscough, a significant heroin dealer in the 1980s and 1990s.

Just yards down the road from Sean Treacy House stands a memorial, erected in 2000, to all those who died from heroin in the locality.

It’s thought the couple were due to return from Spain in the coming week.

Locals said Ms Conroy was looking forward to getting out of the flats and into her own house.

Several sources confirmed she had only recently turned her life around after struggling with heroin addiction.

“She went to the City Clinic on Amiens St years ago receiving treatment and was getting drug counselling locally,” said one source.

“She was a good kid, she had got herself clean and was trying to get her act together.”

Local Sinn Féin councillor Christy Burke said he had only heard good things about Ms Conroy from locals.

“Everyone has said she was a good mother and was looking forward to getting her own place. I had seen her myself and she seemed to have smartened herself up.”

He said the demolition of Sean Treacy House was long overdue.

“We want to rid the area of that appalling, Dickensian, Rashers Tierney-Strumpet City conditions, rat infested, damp complex.”