Mould and damp caused by condensation in a Dublin City Council flat was an aggravating factor, though not the cause, of a young mother’s suffering from asthma, Judge Fiona O’Sullivan said in the Circuit Civil Court on Tuesday.The judge, accepting the evidence of Danielle Hogg about the conditions that had existed in her Dublin City Council flat in Avondale House, North Cumberland Street, awarded the mother-of-three €12,500 damages.Hogg (34), a fitness instructor, who is expecting a fourth baby and now residing in Coolock, Dublin, had told her barrister Sharbee Morrin that because of conditions in the flat in 2020 she had experienced difficulty breathing.She said she had often been kept awake while coughing up phlegm and had to sit up in her bed to prevent further bouts of coughing which, she claimed, would be triggered by the cold, damp and black mould throughout the apartment.Outlining her €60,000 damages claim, Morrin, who appeared with O’Hanrahan Lally D’Alton Solicitors, said she was seeking more than €4,000 special damages for replacement of wardrobes, her bed and mattress, baby clothes, curtains, bedclothes and some of her own clothes that had been destroyed.Hogg told the court that following complaints, council workmen had carried out repairs, including dry-lining of walls, on a number of occasions but had been unable to prevent condensation. Sometimes water literally ran down the walls of the bathroom, bedroom and her children’s room. There had been black mould and damp throughout the flat.Cross-examined by barrister John P Kehoe, for the local authority, she said council workmen had responded on the three occasions she had made complaints. Kehoe told her the council was the largest landlord in Ireland responsible for a housing stock of 30,000 units. Lloyd Semple, a forensic engineer who carried out an inspection of Hogg’s flat, told the court the master bedroom had been showing severe signs of condensation on the external walls and the back of her wardrobe was rotting with severe mould growth occurring on the backboard.He said that in the master bedroom he found a moisture reading of 50 per cent, and one of 70 per cent in her two girls’ bedroom. Hogg had been residing in unacceptable conditions which had been no fault of her own, he said.When Morrin attempted to introduce a media article that stated residents in other local authority accommodation were suffering the slow violence of State neglect, and which outlined criticism by the European Committee of Social Rights of State neglect of local authority tenants, the judge intervened and said she would decide the case on the facts as presented to her in court.She awarded Ms Hogg damages of €10,000 with special compensation of €2,500 for loss of property.