‘We want more babies but need a bigger council house’
Jason Casey, who has been on a housing waiting list for 10 years, has staged a silent protest outside Limerick City Hall in Limerick for six weeks.
The 42-year-old, who lives in a three-bedroom home, said: “We have five girls in one room and two boys in the other room and we take the baby in with us.
“We manage, but we shouldn’t have to manage ... not when they [council] have so many houses out there — not when we have the regeneration, not when there’s Nama out there.”
Mr Casey, from Glenbrook, Childers Rd, said he doesn’t mind some people saying he shouldn’t have had eight children if he couldn’t afford to house them. “The truth is, I love having babies and my wife loves having babies. I’ll keep having babies.”
He said he was looking for a larger house in Garryowen, where five of his children go to school, but that Limerick City Council said it doesn’t have a larger house to give him. “Ten years on a housing list is long enough. The council are saying they don’t have a house for me. I’ve given up ringing them up. I get to speak to them every three months and the meeting lasts five minutes. They ask me my name and my address and how many kids I have and then I come out and I make another appointment.”
Mr Casey said he was promised a larger house by the council five years ago.
“I started off 10 years ago when they [council] promised me a house in Garryowen in five years. I waited my five years and they said there was none available — at the time I think I had three kids. I said OK, and waited another six months for one of their appointments.
“I asked for my file under the Freedom of Information Act but most of my details were blacked out. I spoke to politicians about my case but nothing has happened. Enough is enough. Limerick City Council discriminates against large families.
“Our Constitution says that we, the people, are entitled to adequate housing, and that’s all I want.”
He said he had tried to gain employment as a street hot dog vendor but was refused a licence to trade in the city centre. “I did try to start up my own business. The council gave me a licence to trade outside Thomond Park and then they banned us from trading there and moved us all down the road... we weren’t making a shilling there.
“Then I got a licence for the city market, but sure, who is going to eat a hot dog at 10 o’clock in the morning down in the market. So, I was going out [in the city] to catch people coming out of the nightclubs and the gardaí were coming up to me saying I had to move on because there’s no law.
“I should be a poster campaign for the council — a man with eight kids, off the dole — I’m costing the State more by being on the dole.”
A spokesman for Limerick City Council said it doesn’t comment on individual cases.
More than 3,000 people are on its waiting list.
