A 77-YEAR-OLD retired farmer who lost all his worldly possessions in a freak house fire two months ago is pleading for a permanent roof over his head.
Bachelor Gus Dempsey returned to his home of over 30 years on May 5th only to find emergency services tending to a blaze which eventually destroyed the rural property at Horsehill, Ballinadee, near Bandon.
Gus has been relying on the kindness of a neighbour who took him in but now they need the accommodation for relatives and the 77-year-old must find a new place to live.
Gus said he has been assessed by Cork County Council and approved for emergency accommodation, but he has no idea what will happen next.
Gus told The Southern Star: ‘I’ve been farming all my life until I retired, I was born in the countryside and I want to stay living in the countryside. I would like to stay in this area, I’ve been here since 1993.
‘I’m happy enough here. I don’t want to move but I just don’t know what is going to happen.’
Independent Ireland TD Michael Collins raised Gus’s situation in the Dail while discussing a housing motion and said it made him question what this country does for its older citizens.
He told the Dail: ‘There’s no social housing in West Cork. I think maybe two units came up in the past ten weeks. This is an astonishing situation West Cork finds itself in.
‘Gus is homeless today. His housed burned down, his neighbour, who was brilliant, gave him a place to move into, but their family is coming home and he has to be out by a certain date.
‘Now he has no home, he doesn’t know if he’ll be sleeping on the street. That man is in an awful situation because he could end up in a nursing home when he doesn’t need to be in a nursing home.
‘This is the crisis that we have in this country, our elderly people are being abused left, right and centre. We have our eye completely taken off the ball in relation to their future.’
Gus thanked locals who came to his aid after his house burned down but admitted the uncertainty over his future was taking its toll on him.
He said: ‘I thank God I was out when the fire took but it has left me without anything. All the top floor went, there was smoke and water damage and everything downstairs was destroyed. It is gone.
‘I was living there since early 1993 so it was a bit of a shock. I wouldn’t wish it on anybody. I had little bits and pieces, mementos, inside that were precious to me. They were lost which is an awful shame. I was very sad about it, and now I don’t know what will happen next.’
A spokesperson for Cork County Council said the local authority does not comment on individual housing cases.
