Standing in her maisonette in south Dublin, Janice Maguire points to the small double bed she shares with three of her young sons.
“Two of them [aged seven and five] are down the bottom of the bed, and then myself and the youngest [aged four] are up here,” she says.
Maguire (39) lives in the two-bedroom home on Lissadel Road in Drimnagh with her seven children. The maisonettes, built in the early 1950s and operated by Dublin City Council, are flats with units at ground and first-floor level and gardens on either side.
Maguire’s 18-year-old daughter shares the other bedroom with her 12-year old brother, with his single bed stacked up against the wall during the daytime to give the family more space. Clothes are dried on a rack in the narrow hallway between the rooms.
“Two of the kids can’t stay overnight with me because there’s no room,” says Maguire.
