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

Terminally ill Cork City Council tenant David Kearney says his flat is regularly filled with smoke and the smell of creosote. Picture: Donal O'Keeffe
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.”