Up to 600 Social and Affordable homes could be lost in Minister for Housing’s Constituency – Humphreys

Labour Party Representative for Dublin Bay South, Senator Kevin Humphreys, has called on the Minister for Housing, Eoghan Murphy, to clarify and publish the deal between his Department, Dublin City Council and Deloitte to provide nine hundred social and affordable homes on the Glass Bottle site in Ringsend.

This comes as the receiver of the Glass Bottle site, Deloitte, have sent in an appeal to An Bórd Pleanála about the provision of social homes on the site.

Senator Humphreys said:

“In the Poolbeg Strategic Development Zone (SDZ) Planning Scheme adopted last May by Dublin City Council, 900 social and affordable houses were required to be built out of a total of 3500 houses on the old Glass Bottle site in Ringsend.

“Councillors on Dublin City Council only voted through this scheme on the clear understanding that there was to be a financial agreement between the Department of Housing, Dublin City Council and the receiver, Deloitte that 25 per cent of the homes on the site would be social and affordable.

“The news today that the receiver, Deloitte, are appealing the plans to build 900 affordable and instead only build 300 is shocking and disappointing.

“This is all happening in the Minister for Housing, Eoghan Murphy’s constituency. He needs to publish the deal his Department made with the City Council and Deloitte last May and provide clarity to not just councillors but to his constituents who have been working so hard to ensure that social and affordable housing will be made available on this site.

“The Poolbeg model was being heralded across the country as a template for providing strategic social and affordable housing in areas where it is so desperately needed on land owned partly by the State.

“The homeless figures in Dublin alone have increased by 32 per cent in the last year. The announcement that there would be the provision of 900 social and affordable homes in Dublin City provided a glimmer of hope to many.

“What we need now is a clear statement from the Minister that he will ensure that there will be no backing down from his Department on the provision of 900 social and affordable homes in his own constituency.”