Limerick shop owner fumes over dereliction in area
A LOCAL activist and business owner in Limerick says derelict houses have made people wary about whether their local community is safe.
Pa O’Halloran, who runs the general store in Ballynanty and PJ’s Plaice chip shop in Thomondgate is fed up of what he feels is inaction by the council on housing across the northside.
And he has even gone so far as to suggest people who want a house should be allowed to be given the keys for them and trusted to do the renovations for themselves.
“I’m looking at anything up to 15 houses lying idle for the last two to five years. It’s a disgrace. I’m the local shopkeeper in Ballynanty and the people around here are fed up,” he said.
Pa said people in the community are fed up of looking at “a lump of steel” in front of them. “When you see this kind of thing, what does it say about the area? ‘Oh, stay out of here, don’t come in here’.
When people come into my shop, they ask me if it’s OK to go to certain parts of Ballynanty, or to walk down the road. It’s not fair, it’s not right. The people of the northside of Limerick deserve better,” he added.
Pa – a former boxer, who runs St Munchin’s Boxing Club – said there is frustration that the next estate, Moyross, is getting many new developments, while Ballynanty is not.
In the case of private derelict homes, council – which had not responded to a request for comment at the time of going to press – can initiate proceedings to try and bring action on them, while it’s in the local authority’s own gift to tackle its own stock.