Very puzzling. Could you run a few more commands and post the output?
ls -la /storage/.config/
ls -la /storage/.cache/services/
ls -la /dev/lirc*
systemctl -a | paste
udevadm info -a -n /dev/lirc0 | paste
It would also be interesting if starting lircd manually works. Open 2 ssh sessions, in the first one run this (it's a single line, forum display will break it but copy-paste should work):
/usr/sbin/lircd --nodaemon --loglevel=debug --driver=default --device=/dev/lirc0 --output=/run/lirc/lircd-lirc0 --pidfile=/run/lirc/lircd-lirc0.pid --release=_LIRCUP /storage/.config/lircd.conf
If this worked (you should see "Notice: lircd(default) ready, using /run/lirc/lircd-lirc0") run the following command in the second ssh session:
/usr/sbin/lircd-uinput --loglevel=debug --release=_LIRCUP /run/lirc/lircd-lirc0
At this point you should have a working remote in kodi.
Please also post the console output you got from these commands.
so long,
Hias