'What he’s enduring is unacceptable': Terminally ill tenant’s home plea to Cork City Council

A terminally ill pensioner who was a childhood friend of Rory Gallagher is begging Cork City Council to move him from a damp flat which he says fills with fumes when neighbours light fires.

David Kearney, a 69-year-old retired forestry and construction worker who is suffering from end-stage COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) and emphysema, has been told by doctors that he has perhaps two to four years to live.

In September of last year, Mr Kearney moved into a council flat on Cherry Tree Rd, a flat identical in age and design to the flats in the Noonan’s Road area, which the council has said it favours demolishing.

Mr Kearney said he was waiting two months for the council to install a replacement boiler, so he tried to warm the flat by lighting the fire in his living room.

“The whole place filled up with smoke. I got in a professional chimney sweep, and he said the whole chimney is cracked, so I couldn’t light it again,” he said. “The chimney is lined with soot and creosote, that’s a substance like tar that clings to the inside of the chimney, and the whole place smells of it.”

Although Mr Kearney’s fireplace was covered over by the council, the chimneys in the flats are interconnected, so whenever a neighbour lights a fire, smoke leaks in.

“You can smell the creosote in the air, and everything you eat tastes of it. Last week I had to get the fire brigade out the fumes got so bad.”

Having only 28% lung capacity, Mr Kearney has to sleep with the windows open at night. “The creosote in the air catches me when I lie down,” he said.

Last week, unable to breathe, Mr Kearney had to be taken to hospital by ambulance.

“I gave the council 18 doctor’s letters explaining my medical condition before the council moved me into this place, and still they put me here.”

The flat is damp, with fungus growing on the bedroom wall, and rodents have got through open holes drilled in the external walls.

Working in for decades, Mr Kearney had saved about €10,000 to cover his funeral expenses, but he has spent “about half of it” trying to make the flat habitable.

A native of Dalton’s Avenue, he grew up next door to the legendary Katty Barry’s pub — “We knew her as Kitty. Outsiders would call her Katty.”

A childhood friend of Rory Gallagher, he would meet Rory when the Cork bluesman was touring , and he would bring his old friend on a tour of Berlin’s old taverns.

Mr Kearney said he was not asking for much from Cork City Council.

“I just want to go to a place where I’m not inhaling creosote every day, where I’m not being made sick,” he said.

Paddy O’Brien, advocate for the elderly, said Mr Kearney had sent numerous emails, letters, and phone calls to City Hall explaining his plight. “This is not right. Dave’s health has deteriorated in the dreadful conditions in the flat,” Mr O’Brien said.

“He’s not looking for special treatment, but what he’s enduring is unacceptable.”

Mr O’Brien said he was calling on the council to give “this decent man some comfort and dignity in his final years”.

Cork City Council was asked for comment.