Hypothermia death: Calls to switch on heat ‘ignored’

PHONE calls made to maintenance numbers requesting the heating be switched on in an apartment block in which a young mother eventually died of hypothermia were “hung up on”, the Dublin City Coroner’s Court has heard.

At the inquest into the death of 30-year-old mother of two, Rachel Peavoy, a resident in the same Ballymun apartment complex, Linda McLoughlin, said she had repeatedly complained to council officials that “in her opinion” the apartments’ communal heating system had not been switched on as normal in September 2009.

She said following her complaints she was given the phone number of maintenance staff. When she called this number she was told it was incorrect and her calls hung up on. Ms McLoughlin testified that she checked the accuracy of the number but there continued to be “no response to my calls”.