Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Tuesday, 10 June 2025
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage
Report of Housing Commission: Housing Commission
2:00 am
Mr. Michael O'Flynn:
We have very high standards, and so we should. To answer the Deputy's question, it is quite the opposite to what she described. The higher you go, the more difficult it is to make it viable. We built one of the tallest buildings in Ireland back in the day, the Elysian in Cork. The top storeys of that building were completely neutral as regards return on investment. It is not what the Deputy think. "Compact entities" are the new buzzwords. High-density buildings or skyscrapers, as the Deputy calls them, are not that efficient in terms of value and return, so they will not happen at this time. If we were to do a residual value, which is what a site would be worth with a high-density apartment block on it, it would have a minus value. That minus value is not going to change anytime soon. This is an enormous challenge that cannot be answered in a quick question here, under time pressure.
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