A founding member of the Irish pop-rock band The Script is the landlord of a mould-ridden, unregistered rented studio described by the tenant living there as “uninhabitable”.
Glen Power plays drums and co-founded the band with Danny O’Donoghue and the late Mark Sheehan in 2001.
The band have achieved huge commercial success across the world, having sold 12 million albums and four million concert tickets, according to their Spotify page.
Power is the director of a company called Open Bridge Ltd, with his son Luke Power is registered as the secretary.
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Open Bridge Ltd had tangible assets of more than €8 million at the end of 2024, the latest financial statement filed for the company shows.
The company is listed as the landlord of a studio apartment in the garden of a three bedroom semidetached house in Tallaght, Dublin 24.
While the three-bed house is registered with the Residential Tenancies Board, the one-bedroom apartment at the rear is not.
Tenant Oriel Corway is in receipt of the Housing Assistance Payment, a State scheme for people on the social housing list.
This State-funded payment covers the majority of the rent for the apartment, which is more than €1,300 a month.
In May 2025 Corway paid for an engineer’s survey on the property, seen by The Irish Times.
The report found high levels of dampness and mould growth throughout the inside of the apartment.
It also found insufficient ventilation, exposed live wires and poor weather sealing around the doors and windows.
The report recommended engaging a damp-proofing specialist to resolve the issues, the removal and treatment of the mould and the rewiring of the unit.
“There is mould everywhere, it’s all over everything and it is probably all over me,” Corway said.
Photographs show significant black mould growth on the walls and ceilings, particularly in the bathroom, which she described as “a nightmare”.
She has to pull out the couch several times a week to clean up puddles of water which gather there, she said, and the situation is worse in her bedroom.
“My bed is soaking wet, I have to dry it with a hair dryer some nights. Sometimes I wake up and I’m soaking wet. It’s no way to live,” she said.
She has raised the issue with letting agent Ray Cooke on several occasions, and they have sent in workmen a number of times. However, the mould and leaks persist in the apartment.
Local authorities are responsible for enforcing the minimum standards required for rental properties in Ireland.
They have the power to inspect the property and can issue improvement or prohibition notices to non-compliant landlords.
It does not appear any such inspection has taken place at this unit.
A spokesman for Ray Cooke, also speaking on behalf of Glen Power, said the landlord “is fully committed to have the issues resolved in full” and has “been looking at ways to keep [the] tenant in situ while works are completed”.
More than €9,000 has been spent trying to rectify the issue over the last eight months, he said, and the landlord has received his own property survey “for comparison”.
“Extensive works are required to remedy” the issues found and “vacant possession will be required while works are completed,” he said.
The “tenant will be offered the property back once works are completed,” the spokesman said.
When asked if an inspection would be carried out at the property, South Dublin County Council said it would not comment on an individual case.
Speaking generally, it said: “Inspections are conducted as part of a planned inspection cycle and are also undertaken in response to complaints from tenants or members of the public”.
