Council tenants are asking why money can't be quickly found for social housing regeneration, but can for new offices

Neighbours and other social tenants she spoke to were shocked to learn of the plans that Dublin City Council has to build new offices for itself, says Gayle Cullen Doyle.

That it could find hundreds of millions to buy and build out the Camden Yard site on Kevin Street, to provide new offices for its own staff. 

“People are going ballistic,” says Cullen Doyle, on Tuesday on the phone. “It's really after rattling them.”

“How are they able to pull money out for that?” said Cullen Doyle. “They are only working there a few hours a day, we are sleeping in the conditions and living here morning, noon and night.”

She lives in Oliver Bond House, a council flat ridden with damp and mould, which cause residents health problems. The complex was built almost 100 years ago. Flats are small and overcrowded, she said. She cannot fit in a kitchen table.

Dublin City Council has long promised to regenerate the homes –  “regeneration” can mean demolishing and rebuilding, or major internal renovation – but has not secured funding from the Department of Housing for most of that work, she says. 

Even if the upgrades eventually happen, in this case most homes are to stay the same size – small and cramped. “It's so, so frustrating,” says Cullen Doyle. 

Meanwhile, Frank Gibbons, who lives in the Basin Street flats, in the Liberties, said he thought the council building itself new offices at Camden Yard was “a waste of public funds”.

The Basin Street complex is another that has been waiting years for regeneration. That complex is also plagued by mould and damp.

The works to knock it and rebuild it were to be funded through public private partnership, until that was scrapped at the last hour – and are now part of the council’s new Home Building Programme.

The council should focus its resources on things that really matter, said Gibbons. “There are people living in horrible conditions with mould and dampness, and children with chest problems.”

A spokesperson for Dublin City Council said that the “investment in modern civic accommodation at Camden Yard does not displace or reduce the Council’s housing delivery programme, which is funded and progressed through separate capital, statutory and approval frameworks”. 

The development will improve efficiency, reducing operational costs, they said. The council “continues to deliver new social and affordable homes across the city through a range of sites, programmes and funding streams”.

Time and again though, council tenants are told there isn’t enough money to make their homes healthy – leaving them to question in what office or offices the decisions are made that put them at such a low priority.

Awaiting rejuvenation

At a recent meeting of the Central Area Committee, councillors said that the most run-down social housing complex in the city is Ballybough House. 

It would be a tough competition. But that flat complex isn’t even listed for regeneration because of a lack of funding, said councillors at the meeting. . 

The Basin Street flats, meanwhile, where Gibbons lives, were neglected and in limbo for years, which rolled into decades.

On Thursday, Gibbons said the council is moving tenants out of some blocks at the moment, and the conditions are dire. 

But while the council has said the scheme will be done under its new Home Building Programme, he doesn’t think it’s a sure thing, he said. “The funding isn’t guaranteed yet.”

Cullen Doyle said the council should focus its money and manpower resources on making sure its homes meet the minimum standards as a landlord.

“The living conditions we are living in,” she says, “I thought we needed to be up to EU standards, we are nowhere near that.”

In 2017, the European Committee on Social Rights found that Dublin City Council was in breach of its tenants' human rights. 

At Oliver Bond, at least one resident has been awarded  damages due to damp and mouldy conditions of her home. 

Citywide, in 2023, Dublin City Council paid out more than €1 million in damages to tenants for sub-standard living conditions. 

Cullen Doyle said more tenants began to join protests against the council’s recent increase in rents for social tenants, once they heard about the plan for new offices. So too, said Gibbons.

“They are absolutely fuming,” said Cullen Doyle.  

How does the council say it doesn’t have the money, she said, yet they can whip out €10m for upkeep or €500m to buy and develop offices at Camden Yard. 

“They will get their lovely offices, that site [Wood Quay] will be left idle for years and years, and we will still have damp and mould in Oliver Bond,” she said.

Is it fair to compare?

“I think it's a maddening situation and I can see why people are frustrated by it,” said Green Party Councillor Michael Pidgeon, who sits on the Oliver Bond regeneration committee. 

“It's much more important to regenerate the council flats than the offices, 100 percent,” he said.

But there are different pots of money, which the council can get at in different ways for different kinds of projects, he said. 

“The council would be borrowing for Camden Yard,” said Pidgeon. “Whether you think it's a good or bad idea, that would be borrowing that would be approved by the national government.”

He thinks that the central government wouldn’t approve borrowing to regenerate the flats because, at least in theory, the Department of Housing provides money for that, he said. 

To borrow for Camden Yard, council officials will present an economic case to say that they will save money by moving to Camden Yard, due to lower running costs, said Pidgeon. 

He would prefer the council invest in regeneration over the office development, he says. 

But “I just don’t think the two things are interchangeable”.

“This is not the way it should be,” said Pidgeon. “But it's the way it is.”

The Dublin City Council spokesperson said it can progress its new office development at Camden Yard and prioritise public housing projects, at the same time. 

“Both housing delivery and civic accommodation are essential public responsibilities, and the Council is progressing each through the appropriate governance and funding mechanisms,” she says. 

Sinn Féin TD and housing spokesperson Eoin Ó Broin says the failure to regenerate the council flat complexes is appalling, but it is due to decisions by the Minister for Housing not the CEO of Dublin City Council. 

“The problem at the moment is the Minister for Housing is point-blank refusing to fund those on the spurious grounds that it will lead to a reduction in the number of units,” he says. Like at Pearse House, for example. 

A spokesperson for the Department of Housing has said it is “committed to supporting the Regeneration of Social Housing Flat complexes in Dublin City. However, it will not support projects involving a reduction of the number of homes.”

Ó Broin said it's not possible to bring the homes up to minimum standards without knocking some through, and losing some homes. Size standards have changed over the course of the last century, he said. 

“I think the residents in Oliver Bond and Pearse House and Ballybough House and elsewhere are right to be furious,” he said. 

“Furious with the council, furious with government, and furious with the politicians who are imposing these decisions on them,” said Ó Broin. 

Whether the council borrows or uses capital funding for any development at Wood Quay, it will need to get ministerial approval, he said. 

The council plan is build more around 532 homes on the site, according to a presentation to councillors. 

In his view, the council shouldn’t borrow “for its entirely unnecessary demolition and rebuild on the Wood Quay site”, said Ó Broin. 

The plan is wasteful and will lead to unnecessary carbon emissions, he says, and he doesn’t support it.  

“There is simply far too much demolition and rebuild going on in Dublin city, which has a very negative impact on the urban fabric and the built heritage of our city,” he said.