Room to Improve: Dermot Bannon helps Julian Benson make dream come true

Community builds on its strengths to give Victorian redbrick Tranquillity House a new lease of life as a respite home

Dermot Bannon and Julian Benson onsite at Tranquillity House in Dublin. Pictures: Brian McEvoy

Seeing the tears shed by young cystic fibrosis patients when their families were unable to visit them made Julian Benson resolve to do something as soon as he grew up.

Julian was diagnosed with CF as a two-year-old and his mother was told he wouldn’t live beyond 12.