Some Drimnagh residents want the council to buy the old, frequently arsoned, G4S site

What most locals call the old vacant G4S site in Drimnagh – but if you’re Savills, you call Canal House in Rialto – has smashed windows, an abandoned old chair out front, and a for-sale sign tickled with weeds.

But perhaps the biggest issue in recent times, say residents, has been the regular fires.

On the phone on Tuesday, Patricia Ryan says she counted as many as four fires in the previous five days – set, it seems, by bored young teenagers.

For those living and working around the site, it isn’t just frustrating, said Ryan, who runs Dynamic Drimnagh, a local residents’ group. 

It’s also worrying, she said, given the potential for fire to spread and for somebody to be hurt.

Ryan has tried to reach the owners of the site but had no direct engagement, she said. She has been on to the guards and the council, she said.

“The main thing is here, that Herberton Road [Development] Limited are just sitting back, they’re just ignoring it,” she said.

Property records show the site’s owner as Herberton Road Development Limited, a development company owned and administered by the investment firm Elkstone Capital Partners.

The company has for two years had an idling planning permission for 113 apartments, and spaces for a medical facility, cultural and community events, and café or retail uses.

Ryan says that it’s time for the state – whether Dublin City Council or the Land Development Agency (LDA) – to look at taking control of the land and build it out itself.

At a meeting in March, Fiona Craven, a council official working on housing, had talked about how the council is seeking out plots to buy in the city, so that it doesn’t run out of places to build homes.

It expected to make as many as 10 applications to buy sites with the help of a fund run by the Housing Agency, she said.

It’s too soon to say if the old G4S site would be a good pick for the council but it’s something to look at, said Sinn Féin Councillor Daithí Doolan. “It’s something I’ll be raising.”

In the meantime though, the owner needs to take responsibility for the safety of the building, said Doolan. “Just because it’s not being used and is up for sale, they don’t abdicate responsibility.”

A spokesperson for Elkstone didn’t respond before deadline to queries sent on Wednesday, asking about the fires and its plans for the site.

A long-running problem

To one side of the old G4S site is a row of terraced homes. To the other, a lane into the Glenview Industrial Estate.

Inside the quiet estate is Rialto Beds, and Crown Motors, and The Playground, a complex for recording, dance and music. 

During one of the larger fires a couple of months back, black smoke blew over the industrial estate, said Ivan Klucka, owner of The Playground, as he rushed between meetings on Wednesday.

The fire brigade had to cut the electricity to the estate, he said. It’s just a bit too close for comfort, he said. 

At the moment, the fire brigade is coming out every second day, he said. “I feel like nobody is taking responsibility for it.”

A spokesperson for Elkstone hasn’t responded to queries as to what has held it back from developing the site, given it has had planning permission since June 2024.

Ryan, of Dynamic Drimnagh, says that, as she understands it, there is little that Dublin City Council can do. But her main aim is to see the site built out, she says. 

And, given it’s been for sale– currently listed for €8.25 million – but hasn’t sold on the private market, it would seem time for the state or an approved housing body to step up, she said. 

It could be built out as social housing or cost-rental homes, she said, and help relieve the huge housing need in the area. 

A spokesperson for the LDA didn’t come back with responses to queries about what it looks for in a site, before deadline. Dublin City Council didn’t respond to queries, either.

Doolan, the Sinn Féin councillor, said the council should be buying much more land for its own future projects, to keep its pipeline of homes going. “Because we’re running out of land.”

But also, Herberton Road Development Limited needs to properly secure the site, before more kids start to set copycat fires, and somebody gets injured or worse, he said. “It’s too late then.”