As the government blocks funding for major social-housing projects, FF and FG councillors point fingers at ministers
As many as 1,325 social homes in Dublin city are at an advanced stage, with planning granted – but now with no clear funding.
As many as 1,325 social homes in Dublin city are at an advanced stage, with planning granted – but now with no clear funding.
Councillors said that they feel the city was just used as the backdrop for a pre-election PR campaign.
Across the city, tenants in older flats confront the stark difference between their conditions and those likely in new cost-rental homes.
Dublin city councillors say they aren’t being kept up to date about continued fall-out from governance issues at the housing charity, Peter McVerry Trust.
“The difference that tenant purchase made to Irish society was enormous,” says Aideen Hayden. But its legacy and present is complex.
“Before I get out of my car outside the house, I get the smell of sewage. When people call over, I have to warn them. It’s embarrassing.”
Phase 1b of the project to eventually build upwards of 700 homes on the site envisions building 30 fronting onto Dolphin’s Barn Road.
This isn’t viable, so another use for the site will have to be found, a council official said.
Councils are reluctant to use the single-stage process because they take on more risk if something goes wrong, says Sinn Féin TD and housing spokesperson Eoin Ó Broin.
“I just cannot get over that they didn’t maintain the same level of funding at a minimum, because it’s a bloody great scheme,” says Fine Gael Councillor Tom O’Leary, of the homelessness-prevention scheme.
The Department of Housing has vetoed the council’s designs for the Herbert Simms-designed Pearse House in the south inner-city.
Debate so far has been around the current costs of maintenance, which tenants may be asked to pay more, and the fairness of rent rises for those in poor conditions.