As the government courts more international money for Ireland’s rental sector, tenants say they want more transparency around who they are renting from.
Councillors face a choice: to sell the land, perhaps, and use the money for much-needed community facilities. Or to keep the land, perhaps, for much-needed affordable or social homes.
Handing it over to a private operator would drive up prices and drive out small traders, say some councillors. Dublin City Council says it can set conditions when seeking operators.
For heritage reasons, and also environmental ones, Dublin City Council is working on a plan to improve rather than discard Ballybough House, designed by Herbert Simms, and built in 1938.
The charity’s CEO says he used an apartment as an office. But “it is supposed to be used for social housing, it should not be an office”, says independent Councillor Anthony Flynn.
Some councillors worry that transferring council sites to these not-for-profit bodies to provide social homes on them could lead to privatisation. Is that valid?
Dublin councillors rejected a proposal from chief executive Owen Keegan to sell bundles of lands. But the plot sales will likely come again before the council, one by one.
More than a year ago, CHAS was criticised for moving out elderly social-housing tenants, and renting to students. Students are still living there, and now the charity wants to buy the land.
Early – and provisional – estimates from Dublin City Council put average cost rents for St Michael’s Estate at €1,300. But there are ways to bring that down.
In the last week, Tina MacVeigh of People Before Profit, Críona Ní Dhálaigh of Sinn Féin, Michael Pidgeon of the Green Party, and Rebecca Moynihan of Labour were out canvassing. Fianna Fáil’s Michael Watters has joined the push, too.
One of the five homes managed by HipHipStay was advertised as the “Bobby Sands Suite”. “We just name all our properties after famous or historic Irish people,” says the company director.
