“There Is Something Seriously Wrong Here”

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From top: O’Devaney Gardens in Dublin 7; Joan Collins TD

Yesterday.

In the Dáil.

During Leaders’ Questions, Dublin South Central Independent TD Joan Collins raised the controversial deal between Dublin City Council and Bartra for the development of housing at O’Devaney Gardens in Dublin 7.

Ms Collins said:

“Does the Taoiseach agree that the situation with the redevelopment of O’Devaney Gardens, a former council housing estate, is a fiasco?

It was a fiasco from the start and it a fiasco now.

It is an incredible situation given the scale of the housing and homeless emergency we face.

This site, with 14 acres of prime land owned by the State and suitable for up to 800 housing units, has been left derelict for more than ten years.

The original public private partnership, PPP, project collapsed when the developer realised that the €100 million in anticipated profit would not be guaranteed given the collapse in house prices after the 2008 crash.

The PPP model failed because it was based on the premise of massive profits for private developers.

It is this failed model, however, that the Taoiseach’s Government and the Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government, Deputy Eoghan Murphy, are insisting on imposing not just on the city council but on the community from O’Devaney Gardens still waiting for the redevelopment of the area they want to live in as council tenants.

Make no mistake, the problem here is the Minister’s right-wing, neo-liberal bias against public housing.

The Minister wrote to Dublin City Council in October threatening to withdraw State funding for the project unless councillors voted for a deal with a developer, Bartra, that would give 100% of public land in return for 30% of public housing.

Rather than stand their ground, councillors from Fianna Fáil, the Labour Party, the Green Party and Social Democrats have effectively caved into the Minister’s blackmail and tried to repackage the deal with Bartra as something it is not.”

Ms Collins added:

“Let us be clear what this means.

This is the same deal that for the developer means 14 acres of prime land, close to the city centre and a Luas line, for free.

The State will pay for infrastructure, a saving of €10 million for Bartra, while the absence of development levies will mean another €5 million saved.

If the State came up with the €120 million for the 30% of the developer’s 70%, which is highly unlikely now having listened to the Minister’s comments, the total cost to the State would then be in the region of €250 million.

The sum of €250 million is what council officials estimate it would cost to build 100% public housing on the site, with cheap loans from the European Investment Bank, EIB.

There is something seriously wrong here.

Is it plain stupidity? I do not think so.

Is it corruption? That was certainly a feature of the past, but not today.

To me, that leaves ideological bias and political cowardice.

Meanwhile, 10,000 people, 4,000 of whom are children, are living in homeless accommodation and thousands upon thousands of people are waiting for housing in this country.”

Yesterday: Misled

Transcript via Kildarestreet.com

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19 thoughts on ““There Is Something Seriously Wrong Here”

  1. Dr.Fart

    i think she’s right. i think this government don’t want a large area of public housing, because they don’t understand lower classes and think they’d be creating a dangerous anti-social area. ultimately if you’re poor, they’d ideally just like you to dissappear. last thing they wanna do is build you a community.

      1. Dr.Fart

        you should be spokesperson for Murphy. when asked why he won’t make social housing you could say “because that worked so well for ballymun” and everyone would clap and cheer and agree that social housing shouldnt be made and if you’re poor, to hell with you, be homelss then.

        1. some old queen

          Barking up the wrong tree there Dr Flatulence.

          It is a given that mixed housing meaning ownership, affordable and social is by far the most successful social model. The real issue is why the council is not allowed manage the build rather than giving it away for peanuts to a private company?

          1. Dr.Fart

            yea! like the most work Murphy’s done this year is threatening the council over this. He only kicks into action if it’s to help developers. I don’t know why they bend to developers so much. I don’t know what they gain from it. can’t be money, because too risky for a start, and they already make a fortune.

        2. Janet, I ate my avatar

          the gap between have and have nots is not unique to Dublin, the lack of concern at the too either, 700 homeless children and their families slept on the street last night, 20,000 in shelters across the city,
          just an example of what galvanized the yellow vests, will it take the same figures to galvanisé Ireland ..?

          1. Dr.Fart

            i think there’s so many protests these days that they get lost. theyre almost daily and now people dont really pay attention as much because theres so many. its the likes of paul murphy who’ll be out there demanding that respect is given to the victims of civil war in guetamala and stuff like this. when theres too many, they dont get attention.

          2. some old queen

            Because of the media blackout over here, it is hard to get a handle on what the yellow vests are about. Some say hard left and some say hard right- but sure that’s usually just media labels used to demonise anyways.

          3. Janet, I ate my avatar

            a movement against making the common worker a slave for the elite at the base, motivated by the excesses of Macron in the face of many hard working people’s expense, pushed just too far

          4. Janet, I ate my avatar

            https://youtu.be/z5u-HKciyhM

            “Les Misérables”, de Ladj Ly

            however the dose watched this film the other night and because he shed a year he’s going to look ” at improvement for the lives of those in sensitive quarters” you couldn’t make it up,
            maybe we should sit our government down with some hard hitting films and the eyes pinned open instead of a march ?

            https://www.franceculture.fr/emissions/le-billet-politique/le-billet-politique-du-mardi-19-novembre-2019?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook#Echobox=1574166752

  2. diddy

    but chaps….do we live in a capitalist meritocracy or do we not? drinking banging, producing kids, working a low wage job , low skilled part time job,( maybe) entitles you to a state subsidised home in the center of Dublin?

  3. garrett

    Large scale social housing developments have always been a disaster for everyone. They should never be built

  4. :-Joe

    G’wan the mighty Joan Collins, picking up the slack left by other independents who headed off to kick over the cosy status quo being supported by our establishment F-f/g sell-outs in beuracracy central…

    Folks, take note, this is what an ordinary decent honest hard-working independant candidate looks like…

    :-J

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