Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

There is much interest in the St. Michael’s site because it provides opportunities to deliver cost rental, affordable homes close to the city centre, close to key infrastructure, such as transport, and close to where people will want to live and work. It can do that in a way where people who are not able to qualify for social housing, but also cannot get access to the private rental market, will then be able to live in a community. We also want to ensure people from the community can live there too.

I have met with two different representative groups and have been on the site. Some fantastic work has already happened with Richmond Barracks and Goldenbridge cemetery. There are challenges facing the school in terms of some of the situations in which some of the children find themselves. There are also 52 new living with care homes which have been delivered. Much is happening at the site. There is a great opportunity to provide cost rental accommodation at scale there. That will add further improvements for those people coming to live in the area.

However, I have a problem with the level of ambition coming from the community, namely the proposal to limit the development to 300 homes. I have said to the two representative groups that we have a housing shortage and an affordability challenge. These issues are coming together in an acute way in Dublin city. The idea that the St. Michael’s site would only have 300 new homes delivered on it is disappointing. The site can take more public housing and more affordable homes to rent without impacting on the level of ambition for social housing provision. We are working with several different stakeholders to see what exactly that model will look like and what would the affordable rents mean for people moving into these houses.

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