Plans progress for social housing on long, long-vacant site in Dolphins Barn

Michael Cleary, director of development at the Iveagh Trust, has said that the housing charity plans to start building 25 new social homes on a prominent derelict site in Dolphins Barn next year – once funding is approved.

At Tuesday’s meeting of the South Central Area, local councillors backed plans for the council to transfer the vacant row – which runs from 33 to 37 Dolphins Barn – to the Iveagh Trust.

Next step is for the proposed transfer – the council calls it a “disposal” – to go to the monthly meeting, for a vote by all Dublin city councillors.

Labour Councillor Darragh Moriarty said he remembered a proposal that the site be developed by an approved housing body coming before councillors years ago. Planning permission was granted in November 2024.

What had taken so long? He asked.

“Viability” challenges, said Cleary. In other words, it was too expensive to build. He cited construction costs, the tight site, and working out what to do with the planned community or shop space on the ground floor.

The Iveagh Trust still hasn’t quite resolved what will go on the ground floor, Cleary told councillors, but had decided to press ahead and work it out later.

Cleary also said that the Iveagh Trust intends to lodge a funding application for a big development opposite the Coombe Hospital soon – with the hope of being on site with that in the third quarter of next year.

In August 2025, the trust was granted planning permission for 116 apartments – also to be social homes, the planning application says – and two community hubs on that vacant site.

The trust had also struggled with the ground floor use on that, said Clearly, but thinks it has some design solutions. “These can be quite costly to build and yet very difficult to let.”

“Very eager to make both these sites happen,” said Cleary, as he summed up his update. “We are working very hard to deliver them.”

A long road

There have been false dawns before, for the revival of the rundown corner site in Dolphins Barn. 

In March 2015, Dublin City Council sold the row to the company Hollybrook Limited. 

Under the deal, it had four months to start building once it got planning permission, but it didn’t and the council, eventually, took the site back. 

In May 2021, then-South Central Area manager Bruce Phillips said they were hoping to get it developed as soon as possible, through a housing charity.

“It is a priority for the council to expedite development of that area, and clean the whole village up, because it’s in such a prominent location,” he said.

By the following year, the Iveagh Trust was involved as the council’s chosen partner to develop the project.

At Tuesday’s meeting, Moriarty, the Labour councillor, asked how it had taken so long to get to this stage – and why the end date now wasn’t until 2028. “What has happened?”

It is a particularly problematic eyesore, he says.

Cleary said that the Trust has been eager to progress the project and got planning permission a year ago. “The issue we’ve been struggling with, and got over the line, is viability.”

They have worked on that though, he said, and are going to lodge an application for funding within the next week, said Clearly. 

“If they get a positive decision in Q1, go out to tender in Q2, and hope to get on site as quickly as possible,” he said.

Moriarty said that he appreciated difficulties with viability that the trust might encounter. 

But, he said, could Cleary say anymore about the planned future use of that ground floor? 

Moriarty had asked in the past that it be considered for community use, rather than a shop, given how many vacant shop spaces there were around Cork Street and Fatima.

“I think there was a lot of round-the-houses on that,” he said.

Cleary said the Iveagh Trust had spoken to several local operators for different community uses. 

“The advice we have been getting generally is if we construct it and have it there,” he said, “we may then be able to find someone who is in a position to use it.”

The charity may try to push a retail use, but one challenge is that it is on a busy corner site for passing traffic, so tricky for deliveries, and there would be no access to the back of the unit because they’re trying to get as many apartments as possible, he says.

“Our position is that it should be there for a good community use provided we find someone who is in a position to operate it,” he said.