Irish Examiner view: A small housing win in Cork

Cascade development reimagined

Housing Minister Darragh O’Brien speaking at the opening of the development in East Cork. Picture: David Creedon

Amidst all the bad news about housing — the latest figures show that the number of homeless people in Ireland has risen to a new record — it’s very easy to overlook any positive signs of progress. And that is likely to be further emphasised in May when the impact of the end of the evictions moratorium makes itself more visible.

Strong reason, therefore, to celebrate any success, into which category we can place the conversion of an unfinished eyesore — which had stood empty for 17 years in Carrigtwohill in East Cork — into a 95-apartment complex in the largest social housing project delivered by an approved body in Munster this year.

The Cascade scheme, in the Castlelake development, had lain vacant for so long that there were local calls for it to be “finished or blown up”. The project was delivered by Co-Operative Housing Ireland which says, after the impacts of the pandemic and the war in Ukraine, it will now achieve a record with 700 units being targeted for completion in 2023.

Jonathan O' Mahony with his daughter, Freya, in their new apartment at Cascade Apartments in Carrigtwohill, Co Cork. Picture: David Creedon

Jonathan O’Mahony, 31, who spent two years in emergency accommodation, put matters in more human and moving terms standing on the balcony of his new apartment.

“I felt helpless and hopeless,” he told our reporter. “I was worried about if I could ever put a roof over my kids’ heads. It was heartbreaking at times. 

Even getting out of bed some days was very difficult.

“But to have a home now is one of the best feelings I’ve ever had — to have a place that’s safe and secure.” 

That is the sound of hope and happiness. The nation needs to hear much more of it for the foreseeable.