71-year-old Hugh Dunne says he is sleeping in his car in Waterford after becoming unable to secure accommodation.
Dunne told Gript that he was forced to move from Carlow in unfortunate circumstances after a lengthy dispute with neighbours.
He says he has made attempts to secure local authority housing, but that Waterford County Council told him it would take 10 years before he would be given a house.
He says he answered that he would ‘be dead by then’ and was subsequently taken off the housing list.
He says he was not offered any emergency accommodation, leaving him with no choice but to sleep in his car.
He says he came to Waterford hoping to settle in the area as he had visited it many times in the past, but that the rising cost of housing has prohibited him from securing stable accommodation in the area.
Gript understands that Dunne was living in hotels for some time after leaving Carlow before resorting to sleeping in his Nissan Micra.
The 71-year-old said that until quite recently, he had been in residential care after contracting covid 19, but that he was forced to leave after recovering being told his bed was ‘needed for geriatric patients’.