Dublin City Council pulls offers of social homes in Finglas development

When the phone rang for Shirley Dodrill in November, she thought her prayers had been answered.

She was offered an apartment in the new Raven House development in Finglas, and it was a dream come true, she says. “To finally get somewhere that would be perfect for me.”

The council had agreed to lease Raven House from the developers, Percolt Limited, for 25 years.

The 27 one-bedroom and 10 two-bedroom apartments would be managed by Tuath Housing, an approved housing body (AHB).

Living with mobility issues, the new home, central in Finglas village, would be perfect, Dodrill said by phone on Thursday.

She would be close to shops and amenities, and just one bus from her GP – instead of the two she currently has to take, she said.

She has been living in Prospect Hill for 10 years now, and has been asking to be moved elsewhere for the last eight of those years, she said.

Prospect Hill is quite a bit out from Finglas Village – about a 20-minute walk, if you ask Google Maps.

Also, she says there is little sunlight in her current home. 

And, as she is on the ground floor along the busy Finglas Road, there’s traffic noise all day and all night, she says. “I wanted to get off this main road.”

Her place in Raven House would be on the fifth floor, which she was delighted about, she says.

Initially, Tuath Housing told her she would be in Raven House by Christmas. Then Christmas turned into March, she said.

But, last week, she was told the council would no longer be leasing Raven House from the developer, and so her offer was pulled.

It was a huge blow, she said.

Not quite fast enough

Both independent Councillor Gavin Pepper and People Before Profit Councillor Conor Reddy brought up the reversal of the plans at Monday’s monthly council meeting.

For years, the council sometimes took long-term leases on apartments instead of buying them. But the last government’s housing plan, Housing for All, said the plan was to phase that out by 2025. 

It’s just not good value for money, the department decided. After paying all that cash over decades, the council doesn’t end up with the property.

Although long-term leasing of properties by the council for social housing was to be wound down by the end of 2025, the Department of Housing had allowed a small bit of breathing space when it came to Raven House, Assistant Chief Executive Mick Mulhern said at Monday’s meeting. 

That was on the assumption Raven House would be ready by March, Mulhern said. But it wasn’t, he said.

That’s about when Dodrill got that crushing phone call.

At the meeting, Pepper said, “What’s happened here is an absolute shambles.”

The “right standard”?

At the meeting, Mulhern said, “When we got to the point about inspecting the property and looking at what was actually constructed, it was felt that actually it wasn't at the right standard than what we needed to be able to put our tenants into.”

“Unfortunately, we had to make a difficult decision to say, well, we can't take a property on, that isn't going to meet the necessary building standards, etc,” he said.

Asked about this on Thursday, a spokesperson for Percolt Limited said they were “surprised” to hear about Mulhern’s remark about standards.

“These remarks come as a surprise as Dublin City Council have carried out their regular inspections and to date have not raised any issues, but the contrary, have been complementary to how well the building has been repurposed and retro fitted,” the Percolt Limited spokesperson said. 

They pointed to the recent spate of bad rain as a reason for some hold-ups.

“Like many construction projects across the country over the past number of months, progress has been affected by a sustained periods of inclement weather which have impacted elements of the construction programme,” they said.

“We are progressing through the normal stages of completion and certification, which must be satisfied before any homes can be made available for occupation,” they said.

“We continue to engage with relevant stakeholders as the development advances toward completion,” they said.

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Now Dodrill says she has been offered a new home in Merville Place, which is not far from where she is now on the Finglas Road.

It isn’t the central village spot she had envisioned for herself, after that call in November.

She will still be far from the places she needs regular access to, like her GP – which will stay two bus journeys away.

“I'm just devastated over Raven House. You know, it was going to be perfect for me,” she said.

The Merville Place development, which was also available through the council’s choice-based lettings system, includes 14 studios, 76 one-beds, 72 two-beds, 18 three-beds.

Mulhern, the assistant chief executive, said that anyone who was let down by Raven House is still on the social-housing list. So, when a new home is ready, those people will be housed, he said.

Indeed, a council spokesperson said on Thursday,  “All housing applicants who expressed interest in this development through the choice based letting system have been contacted by the DCC Allocations team and alternative offers of housing will be made,” they said. 

That has sent ripples outward through the community.

Now people who were hopeful of a home in Merville Place think they have no shot – as they feel they are up against those who’d been offered a spot at Raven House, and need an alternative, says Pepper, the independent councillor.

The national housing crisis is particularly acute in this north-western part of Dublin, Reddy, the People Before Profit councillor, said at Monday’s meeting.