Elderly Limerick Council tenants ‘left in limbo’ over home energy upgrade

ELDERLY council tenants in a Limerick housing estate say they have been left “stuck in limbo” over energy upgrade works to their homes.

Eight people living in the Cois Sionna estate in Castleconnell are due to have upgrade works to their home.

But they say despite THE council arranging visits to their homes by engineers, there is no news of when work will begin on each home.

“We are stuck in limbo. It’s stressful. We cannot plan anything,” said one resident Frankie Ryan.

They have been backed by local councillor Ursula Gavan who said the local authority had effectively left the locals “out in the cold”.

READ MORE: Comedian Aisling Bea explores her Limerick farming roots on BBC’s Who Do You Think You Are

For its part, the council says it hopes to have a contractor appointed to carry out the works this summer.

Another resident, Leo Fitzgerald said they first received letters from council last September.

This advised them that a “condition survey” would be carried out on their properties.

“The purpose of this is to identify what energy efficiency works can be undertaken to your home as part of the Energy Efficiency and retrofit scheme 2024/2025,” the letter, seen by the Limerick Leader, reads.

Despite these visits happening, the locals say they have not received any news on if, and when work will commence.

They say it’s left them unable to properly plan for the future.

“We aren’t sure if we should get fuel in for the year, as they told us they are getting rid of the fireplace in favour of water heating. So an awful lot of people last year didn’t bother getting extra fuel. We don’t know either if we can paint the inside of our houses - some of these houses need painting badly. The outside we cannot touch, as we’d only be wasting paint,” Mr Ryan said.

Mr Fitzgerald added: “We just want to know when they are starting. We have to make arrangements here with dogs, medical appointments and the like. We are elderly people.”

Castleconnell-based Independent councillor Gavan said residents were first told upgrade works would kick off last August or September, before being pushed out to January, then this month.

“The residents’ concern is due to the lack of action and communication. These are elderly residents who need to plan their winter fuel allocation. In some instances, they didn’t plan for winter fuel stocks last year as the remedial works would have reduced the overall costing, and again this week, another resident was offering his last fuel stock to family only to take it back due to the delay in works,” she said.

A spokesperson for Limerick City and County Council confirmed eight units in Cois Sionna will receive energy upgrade works this year.

“These upgrade works include new insulation for the attic and external wall, triple glazed windows, external doors, ventilation, an air-to-water heat pump, decommissioning of the existing heating system and demolishing the chimney to achieve the required minimum B2 BER certificate post works,” they said.

It’s anticipated a call out will be published for a contractor to do the works within a fortnight.