Laoise Neylon

Dublin City Council's target is to fix urgent repairs in its social homes in fewer than five days. But for Santry Cross, a big apartment complex in Ballymun, maintenance records list that 13 out of 59 urgent repairs over a 2.5 year-period, took six months or longer to close. The average time until an urgent request is marked "job done" during this period was 97 days, the logs show. That would suggest major shortcomings in basic council services.

Irina Artemjeva is homeless, ricocheting between between different bed and breakfasts, sometimes in different counties, using vouchers provided by her local council. In March, she filed a case with the Residential Tenancies Board (RTB) for alleged unlawful termination of tenancy, which she says is the reason why she is homeless. But staff at the RTB have repeatedly said they will close her case if she doesn’t provide an address. “I am homeless, I’m looking for accommodation,” says Artemjeva.

A few years ago, when Karla Dragić was at home breastfeeding her baby, she also wrote a children’s book. “That was about my cat, while I had my craft business, and he was my shop security cat,” Dragić says. Unfortunately, by the time she published the book, Bongo the Shop Security Cat, Brexit changes had kicked in, which caused complications with tariffs and shipping, she says.