“For nearly a decade, conversations about the possible demolition of people’s homes have gone on in the background,” says Social Democrats Councillor Daniel Ennis.
Developer Ballymore has held many talks with ministers and council officials about its vision to demolish and rebuild part of the north inner-city around Sheriff Street, said the company’s development director at a recent meeting.
Statements from the company – and an email to a councillor from Dublin City Council’s CEO, Richard Shakespeare – suggest that there have been discussions going behind the scenes for some time.
Ballymore didn’t log any communications about the proposal as lobbying on the public lobbying register. On Wednesday, a Ballymore spokesperson declined to respond to queries about this.
Communicating with higher-ranking government officials, and politicians, about a “relevant matter” is classed as lobbying, which has to be recorded on the lobbying register.
A “relevant matter” can include “the initiation, development or modification of any public policy or of any public programme” outside of a formal consultation process – but not the implementation of an existing policy.
The first time that residents in Sheriff Street and surrounding areas heard about the dramatic proposals for their area was in late June, in a Business Post article.
The article was written by David McRedmond, who chaired the city centre taskforce set up by former Taoiseach Simon Harris to rejuvenate the city centre last year.
“If we transform the core, there are other amazing adjacent plans, such as [property developer] Ballymore’s, to completely rebuild the Sheriff Street area from Amiens Street to Spencer Dock,” wrote McRedmond.
Daniel Ennis, the Social Democrats councillor – who later discovered a YouTube video created by Ballymore pitching massive redevelopment of the area – says that the opacity is a problem for local people.
Many Sheriff Street residents had their homes demolished before without their agreement in the 1990s, Ennis says
Anybody involved in undisclosed meetings about the area, without consulting its residents, should apologise to locals, he says.
Mark Fay, the spokesperson for the North Wall Community Association, says that as things stand, there is no planning permission in place for what is presented in the video.
“Until we see a planning permission going in, this may never happen,” he says.
Today, a spokesperson for Ballymore said it still hopes to progress its mixed-use, office and residential development, Dublin Arch, which borders Sheriff Street and for which it does have planning permission.
Fay says that if the developer were to apply somehow for planning permission to demolish parts of Sheriff Street, and the wider area – much of which is council-owned social housing – locals will resist that.
“The day the planning application goes in, then the gloves are off,” says Fay.
In late July, a spokesperson for Ballymore said that the company had engaged with public representatives on its plans to improve and rejuvenate the north inner-city, including Sheriff Street.
It always planned to consult the community at a later stage, they said.
“It goes without saying that any future steps would be shaped and progressed in partnership and consultation with the local community, government, and the local authority,” said the spokesperson at the time.
On Tuesday 16 September, David Killion, the development director of Ballymore, met with councillors at a meeting of the Docklands Oversight and Consultative Forum.
At the meeting, Killion said that in 2016, the council housing manager at the time had asked the developer to come up with a new vision to redevelop the north inner-city, according to Social Democrats Councillor Daniel Ennis and Green Party Councillor Janet Horner, who both attended the meeting.
He told them that Ballymore had since met with senior council officials multiple times over the years, they said.
Killion said that Ballymore had also met and talked about its idea with the Fine Gael TD Paschal Donohoe, who is currently the Minister for Finance, and Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald, both of whom represent the area as well as with Fianna Fáil TD Darragh O’Brien, while he was Minister for Housing.
On Thursday, a spokesperson for the Department of Finance said that the Minister for Finance hadn’t met with Ballymore.
“The Minister is aware of the plans through the local community and media,” they said. “He has not yet met Ballymore.”
The Department of Housing and the Department of Environment have not yet responded to queries as to whether O’Brien was aware of these proposals.
McDonald's office hasn't responded yet to queries sent yesterday afternoon either.
Meanwhile, on 17 September, Dublin City Council turned down a Freedom of Information request seeking records that related to officials’ meetings with the developer since July 2024.
No records exist, they said.
Yet, council chief executive Richard Shakespeare told Ennis that planning staff had met with Ballymore late last year, an email shows.
"The staff in the planning department were asked to attend a meeting with Ballymore group on 5th November 2024, and a presentation was made at that meeting in relation to Sheriff Street,” said Shakespeare in the email.
His email noted that the City Development Plan had 17 Strategic Development and Regeneration Areas (SDRAs), one of which covers the Docklands and lists “key opportunity sites”.
The Sheriff Street area isn’t one of the key opportunity sites, said Shakespeare’s email.
He also said, though, that the planning department was to start its statutory review of the development plan, including SDRAs, next year.
Ennis said local people should have been consulted on the proposals at a much earlier stage. “For nearly a decade, conversations about the possible demolition of people’s homes have gone on in the background,” he says.
In June 2025, after the Business Post article came out, McRedmond said he was referring to improving public space in the area and not to the demolition of anyone’s home.
“What I’ve seen is some ideas for how they [Ballymore] can help renew the area, but it's more about the public space,” he says. “It's not about people’s homes as such.”
Shortly after though, Ennis stumbled on a video on YouTube, which showed Ballymore's proposals for a redevelopment of the area that erased existing houses in Sheriff Street.
Locals are shocked by “the complete absence of honest communication and consultation,” says Ennis, recounting his contribution to the meeting on Tuesday.
Negotiations have been going on since 2016, he said, with no effort made to involve the residents.
In July, a spokesperson for Ballymore said that the conversations, which started in 2016, were “informal and exploratory in nature”.
“The vision shared for the Sheriff Street area is just that, an early, conceptual stage vision, and was created to help initiate a wider conversation about investing in the community and the area,” they said.
Fay, the community representative, says locals are not opposed to the Dublin Arch development but that they would strongly resist any moves towards demolishing Sheriff Street.
As well as people’s homes, the street contains vital community infrastructure, schools, creches, five-a-side pitches and community halls, says Fay.
In 2015, when then Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Labour TD Brendan Howlin, launched the lobbying register, he said it would “restore public confidence in the way business is done.”
It is right and proper that every citizen can lobby for change to the public system, he said – but not in secret.
“We don’t want peddlers of influence to influence the shaping of public policy without that being known,” said Howlin.
Ballymore Properties Ireland Limited is registered for lobbying, meaning that every four months, it writes to the Standards in Public Office Commission (SIPO) telling it who it lobbied.
Not all communications count as lobbying.
The register holds two entries by Ballymore – one about zoning land in Leixlip in late 2017, and one covering land rezoning in Malahide in early 2023.
The register also lists a letter from CEO Sean Mulryan to the Minister for Finance Paschal Donohoe in 2020 to make suggestions about how more housing could be delivered in Ireland.
The developer hasn’t logged any communication with public officials in relation to redeveloping Sheriff Street or the north inner-city.
Ballymore has also been putting forward a masterplan for major redevelopment and expansion of Athlone, in part by its student population and campus, known as “Athlone 2040”.
Company representatives, including its CEO Sean Mulryan, met with Minister for Public Expenditure Jack Chambers and other officials to talk about that proposal, show meeting minutes released under the Freedom of Information Act.
At the meeting, Mulryan said that the company has no economic interest in Athlone, the minutes note.
“Ballymore have developed the proposal for Athlone on this basis which would be replicable at other settlements,” the minutes say.
A spokesperson for the Department of Housing says that the Minister for Housing, Fianna Fáil TD James Browne, also met Ballymore in June 2025 to discuss its proposals for Athlone.
Ballymore hasn’t logged any of those communications on the lobbying register, either.
“That is madness,” says Louisa Santoro, CEO of the Mendicity Institution. “A single person is not a sufficient level of staff to run any homeless service.”
When people see photos of the impressive specimen caught, they can’t believe it was in Darndale pond, says local Alan Kennedy.
The depot site has been the subject of an ongoing campaign by councillors and community groups.
From Ballymun to Drimnagh, plans meet with the same refrain.
