As the government blocks funding for major social-housing projects, FF and FG councillors point fingers at ministers

Two blocks of councillors tabled motions at Dublin City Council’s monthly meeting on Monday, condemning a decision to drop funding at the last hour for 243 social homes with planning permission. 

Last week, Minister for Housing James Browne, a Fianna Fáil TD, said he wouldn’t proceed with funding the homes under a public-private partnership (PPP) agreement due to costs, said Mick Mulhern, the council’s housing manager.

The impact of abandoning the PPP model is likely to go further.

Mulhern said he was back to the drawing board on how to develop those 243 homes as well as hundreds of others planned for future PPPs. 

There are eleven sites in the city, with plans for 1,325 social homes, that are supposed to be funded through PPPs and are at either “tender staged” or “advanced planning”. 

The central government has pulled funding for PPP social housing projects, not long after it slashed budgets for the tenant-in-situ scheme, under which councils can buy rental homes for those living there to remain in as social housing tenants, if they are at risk of homelessness.

At the Monday meeting of the 63-member council, councillors from most parties said they were deeply confused about why the government was cutting spending on social homes, even as homelessness continues to climb.

“I’m beginning to think that this council chamber no longer has confidence in the minister,” said Fine Gael Councillor Ray McAdam at the meeting, referring to Browne, the housing minister.

Fianna Fáil Councillor Racheal Batten swooped in to defend the minister, her party colleague. The problem is that he doesn’t have the backing of his cabinet colleagues, she said. 

Batten urged Minister for Public Expenditure Jack Chambers, a Fianna Fáil TD, and Minister for Finance Paschal Donohoe, of Fine Gael, to loosen the purse strings and support Browne.

“The Minister [Browne] wants to build these, he wants to build plenty more, but he can’t do it without funding,” said Batten. “He absolutely can’t do his role without the support of others in government – and at the moment, it appears he doesn’t have that.”

The Department of Public Expenditure and Reform "sets out overall sectoral allocations", a spokesperson for that department said. "In relation to the Social Housing PPP bundles, the Minister had no role in the final decision making of whether or not to award the PPP contract" – that's up to the Minister for Housing, they said.

The Department of Finance hasn't responded to queries.

The price of PPPs

PPPs generally work something like this. A private company secures private finance to carry out a construction project for the state. The company takes full responsibility for all the construction and maintenance. In return, the state pays them an annual fee.

Dublin City Council had planned to build 2,118 homes on council-owned land in the city in this way – and 220 of those are done, according to a written response to the emergency motions.  

Work was due to begin by the end of this month on projects in East Wall (67), Collins Avenue in Whitehall (83), and Ballymun (93). 

The council has been planning these developments since at least July 2020, when they appeared on a council housing report. 

PPPs are controversial among Dublin city councillors because big PPP projects – like at O’Devaney Gardens and St Michael’s Estate – collapsed with the last recession, delaying the delivery of hundreds of homes. 

Councillors had flagged concerns that PPPs are an expensive and complex way to deliver housing, said Sinn Féin Councillor Doolan at the meeting. 

“We’ve been asking since day one about the cost of public-private partnerships,” said independent Councillor Cieran Perry. 

In 2020, Orla Hegarty, assistant professor of architecture in University College Dublin, flagged issues of high costs with PPPs.

“These projects take much longer and cost significantly more to procure. A very high premium is paid for private finance and management,” she said.

Still, the central government reiterated its commitment to PPPs in its 2021 housing strategy, Housing for All. 

“Increase the use of Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) to deliver social housing,” says the strategy. 

At Monday’s meeting, Batten, the Fianna Fáil councillor, said the proposed homes would have cost nearly €1.2m each under the proposed PPP contract. 

Mulhern, the council’s housing manager, said the proposed price includes maintenance and management of the homes for 25 years, and the contractor would be obliged to deliver the home to the council in peak condition at the end of the contract.

“It is in no way a directly comparable figure to the direct build of a home,” he said. 

In his response to the councillors’ emergency motions, Mulhern gave details for all sites affected by the reversal of government policy. 

He cited 9, although there are 11 sites with planning permission and one in the early stages of planning, on the list provided to councillors. “So what we are thinking carefully about now is how we bring them forward in the best way,” said Mulhern.

A spokesperson for the Department of Housing said that delivering the homes in Bundle 3 – so the 243 social homes that were next up – is still a priority for the government. The developments will go ahead and will now “be delivered by way of an alternative procurement and delivery strategy”, they said.

“After careful evaluation of the costs associated with the 486 homes [nationwide] which were to be delivered under PPP Bundle 3, the Department has decided not to proceed with contract award on a value for money basis,” he said. 

The spokesperson for the Department of Housing didn’t directly respond to a question as to whether future developments in Bundles 4 and 5 are also affected by this decision. 

Emergency motions

“If the suspension of the PPP scheme is not reversed, this Council demands that the Minister urgently allocate direct capital funding to Dublin City Council to enable these housing developments to proceed without delay,” says the Fine Gael councillor’s motion.

Said McAdam, the Fine Gael councillor: “I’m genuinely at a complete and utter loss to understand the Minister’s rationale on this.” 

Heads of government have previously criticised Dublin City Council for not delivering public housing, said McAdam. “I’d like the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste to explain how we can deliver more housing if they are cutting the funding.”

The Tánaiste is his party leader, Fine Gael TD Simon Harris.

Sinn Féin Councillor Daithí Doolan also tabled an emergency motion, seconded by councillors from the Green Party and Sinn Féin. 

“The decision to block this was made at a cabinet table of FF and FG and independents,” said Doolan. 

Dublin is the epicentre of the housing crisis, he said. “Homelessness is crucifying communities, it is causing division and conflict, and some dangerous actors are using that to their own ends.”

“They will also fail. We need to succeed in delivering good homes, in strong, welcoming communities,” said Doolan. 

“I second that,” said McAdam, the Fine Gael councillor. 

Cracks in the coalition?

By phone on Wednesday, McAdam said there is no rebellion within Fine Gael over funding for social housing. 

“We are not rebelling at all,” he said. “We are just expressing our frustration at the decision to effectively terminate PPP bundle 3.”

He wants to know what changed, he says, because these projects would all have undergone value-for-money assessments throughout the process. 

Browne, the housing minister, is accountable, says McAdam. “The line minister has direct responsibility for his remit.”

Council group leaders are also seeking a meeting with the Minister for Public Expenditure, Fianna Fáil TD, Jack Chambers, he said.

Councillors are united in calling for funding to be released for social housing, he says.

“We have a cross-party position on the tenant-in-situ scheme.” 

The tenant-in-situ scheme is an anti-homelessness programme that allows councils to buy homes for renters at risk of homelessness because their landlords are selling. They can then remain in that home, as tenants of the council.

Browne, the minister for housing, variously ignored or batted back three requests from the Lord Mayor of Dublin, Fine Gael Councillor Emma Blain, to meet and discuss the tenant-in-situ scheme, correspondence shows. 

Although the pair did meet in the end. 

At Monday’s council meeting, Right to Change Councillor Pat Dunne said he is currently supporting four families facing homelessness. He asked the Lord Mayor to press the issue of the tenant-in-situ scheme with the Minister for Housing. 

“How can we make the minister further aware of the impact that it is having on families, the devastation it is causing, the fear that it is causing,” he said. 

Blain said she pushed the point at the meeting. “And I won’t be silenced by him, take me at my word.”

Blain sent a letter to councillors on 22 May about that meeting. “The Minister outlined that he would like to see increased levels of construction of social housing,” she wrote. 

“This is utter chaos,” said Labour Councillor Darragh Moriarty, at Monday’s meeting, of the funding for social homes. 

As well as cuts to the tenant-in-situ scheme and the refusal to fund the PPP social housing projects, the government has also cut funding to renovate empty social homes, he said. “We have funding being cut off everywhere we turn.” 

Housing charities are on the radio saying they can’t get funding to build social housing, says Moriarty. 

“I have absolutely no idea what this government’s plan is,” he said. “We have a councillor from Fianna Fáil appealing on behalf of her Minister to other Ministers in government for funding to be released.”

“We, as a local authority, are just watching Mammy and Daddy fighting in government,” he said.

By phone on Thursday, Batten, the Fianna Fáil group leader on Dublin City Council, said that as far as she knows the Department of Public Expenditure refused to sign off on the costs. 

The Minister for Public Expenditure, Jack Chambers, is also her Fianna Fáil colleague. 

Batten said the Minister for Finance, Fine Gael TD Paschal Donohoe, was also involved. “The Minister for Finance signs off on the money,” she says. 

Both departments have responsibility for managing public finances. 

The Minister for Housing was informed of the decision, says Batten. “I know from the minister it was short notice for him as well.”

The costs of the PPP projects came in a lot higher than expected, says Batten, and €1.17m a home is not realistic. If the projects had gone ahead, journalists would have been writing about the overspend, she says.

The Minister for Housing wants to build social housing but can’t, says Batten. “There is no funds in the Department of Housing. You can’t do anything with no money.”

The housing developments will go ahead. Either the council or the Land Development Agency will build the homes, she says, but she doesn’t know when. 

Batten said the government should take a Covid-style approach to housing. “It’s an emergency situation.”

The government has money, says Batten – like €13bn in tax receipts from Apple.

“The reality is there is money,” she says. “And anybody that is not putting money towards housing, that is in politics, as far as I’m concerned, they shouldn’t be there.”

UPDATE: This article was updated at 16.58 on 13 June 2025 to include the response from the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform.