Marillac Housing Association launches their first completed housing project in Hollystown, Dublin 15 to house four adults living with disability
The Mayor of Fingal Cllr. Adrian Henchy officially launched Marillac’s first newly completed housing project in Hollystown, Dublin 15 on Wednesday 6th December. The Mayor was joined by the Chief Executive of Fingal County Council AnnMarie Farrelly.
“I am delighted to be asked here today to officiate at the launch of this completed housing project, which will house four adults living with disability” the Mayor said in his address. He continued to say that he was “particularly delighted to welcome some of Marillac’s tenants who have joined with us in this celebration today” and he welcomed “the staff of Avista CLG who support them and who will also be supporting the future tenants of this house to live here independently as tenants of Marillac Housing Association.”
Local TD and Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth Roderic O’Gorman also attended the celebration and addressed the event and spoke of his department’s commitment to supporting decongregation which is moving people living with disability from residential congregated settings to homes in the community. He described it as being “great to see new residential accommodation for people with disabilities being opened in Dublin West” and described the “collaboration between Marillac and Fingal County Council with the services funded by my department through Avista CLG”.
The Mayor paid tribute to the work of Marillac to date and celebrated their many achievements since their establishment in 2017. Marillac was established following on from a decision by the Board and Senior Executive of the then Daughters of Charity Disability Support Services (now Avista CLG) to transfer community-based housing to a new Approved Housing Body. This decision was taken following the recommendations in the 2011 Time to Move On report together with the aim of separating housing and service delivery functions.
Marillac’s manager was first recruited in 2020 and one of the organisation’s first major achievements was the regularisation of the housing need status of approximately 300 people nationally who were supported by Avista, with almost 100 of these in Fingal alone. 2020 and 2021 saw the completion of the legal conveyancing process of a number of properties as well as securing long term leasing arrangements and the successful exiting from the Voluntary Code for Approved Housing Bodies. The work of 2022 and 2023 saw the establishment of over 100 tenancies and the bedding down of Repair & Maintenance procedures, financial controls and the continued development of new projects.
Minister Jack Chambers, locally elected Cllrs, Fingal County Council’s Acting Director of Housing & Community Development Paul Carroll as well as representatives from the HSE, The Housing Agency and the Irish Council for Social Housing were also in attendance.
Marillac’s Chairperson Michael Cleary paid tribute to the collaboration between all stakeholders including Fingal County Council and Avista CLG who will provide the ongoing supports enabling the four prospective tenants to live independently in the community. The four individuals will be selected from the social housing list and will use the services of Avista CLG.
This project funded by Fingal County Council under the Capital Assistance Scheme (CAS) involved the acquisition of the house itself together with a programme of works to bring it to the required standard to house people living with disability in a communal setting and to meet the highest standard of fireproofing and detection together with various HIQA requirements.
The Mayor also talked about these technical works being undertaken while still ensuring at all times that this house still remains a “home” for the people who will be living in it and the fact that “this project will bring security to the four tenants who will live here and a permanent home with all of the supports they will ever need allowing them to live their best lives and crucially, to live an ordinary life in an ordinary place.”
Today a total of 41 community-based group homes have transferred to the management and control of Marillac with a further 13 due to transfer before the end of the year. Marillac will have a total of approximately 250 tenancies in early 2024 which are located in Dublin, Offaly, Tipperary and Limerick. Marillac is also currently working with Fingal, Limerick and Tipperary County Council’s in the development of new CAS projects to support decongregation and provide housing to adults living with intellectual disability. Marillac recently launched their newly developed website and is also delighted to welcome two newly recruited directors to their Board.
The speeches concluded with some words from Marillac’s Manager Aisling Flynn who paid tribute to Avista CLG, Fingal County Council, the project’s Design Team and Contractor. She spoke about the importance of these single housing projects in the middle of integrated established communities and that this celebration, albeit small and modest “is no less important, valuable, and is just as worthy of celebration as the big development with 100 houses.” She spoke of the past lives of people living with disability in this country and that they “didn’t live in houses like this, in estates like this, with other families, couples, children, single people” and “they didn’t live in houses beside a playground, a few steps away from the bus stop, a place where pets are welcome, a place where ordinary everyday people live”. Crucially she said that “they didn’t live in the type of communities we all take for granted.”
She commended the efforts of “organisations like Avista and the Daughters of Charity before them who really were the trailblazers in progressing living an ordinary live in an ordinary place for people living with disability” and that Marillac together with the other stakeholders like Fingal County Council will continue that work “in supporting these people to live this ordinary regular life with every other person who lives here”.