Sinn Féin will demand answers on the failure to deliver affordable housing at Oscar Traynor Road at tonight’s Extraordinary Dublin City Council.
The meeting was called by Sinn Féin councillors in response to the lack of affordable housing on the Oscar Traynor Road site.
Sinn Féin Leader on Dublin City Council, Cllr. Daithí Doolan, said the party will also call on government not to repeat the mistakes made at Oscar Traynor Road and reverse its decision to hand over state land at TUD Aungier Street to private developers.
He said that to meet the housing need of the people of Dublin, the Aungier Street site, and similar publicly-owned land, must be transferred to Dublin City Council and that the council must be funded to deliver both council housing and genuinely affordable housing.
Cllr. Doolan said:
“Giving state-owned land away to private developers has disastrous consequences for housing affordability. It only benefits the private developers.
“Sinn Féin councillors will tonight demand answers on the inexcusable failure to deliver affordable housing at the site on Oscar Traynor Road.
“Sinn Féin warned Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil what would happen if this site was developed by private developers. It is now clear that Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil councillors allowed themselves to be led up the garden path.
“As a result, what we now have at Oscar Traynor Road are eye-watering house prices that are not only beyond the reach of the vast majority of working people, but that are also significantly higher than the prices promised when the agreement with the developer was put in place.
“Once again, developers get a blank cheque while workers and families are denied the opportunity to purchase affordable homes in their community.
“What’s worse is that Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have learnt nothing – the decision to hand over the TUD Aungier Street site to private developers will repeat the disastrous consequences seen at Oscar Traynor Road.
“We warned them what would happen at Oscar Traynor Road, and we are warning them what will happen again at Aungier Street – handing over this site will lock another local community out of having any chance of affording their own homes.
“This is unacceptable and cannot be allowed to happen. Sinn Féin is calling on government to intervene, to transfer the land to Dublin City Council, and to fund the council to deliver genuinely affordable homes for working people.
“Sinn Féin is committed to deliver tens of thousands of council homes and genuinely affordable homes to rent and buy, delivered by Local Authorities.
“The government cannot continue to sell off the family silver to line the pockets of private developers. They must prioritise the housing needs for the many, not profits for the few.”
The extraordinary City Council meeting takes place at 6.15pm in City Hall and can be viewed online: https://dublincity.public-i.tv/core/portal/home
Sinn Féin motion: This City Council notes with dismay the communication sent to Councillors from Dublin City Council Housing Development section on 24 June which confirms that the so-called ‘affordable’ homes in Oscar Traynor Woods are to be sold at prices which cannot be described in any way as affordable. This is in clear breach of the commitments given at the time of the sale of this formerly public land that homes would be affordable and that this scheme would offer to working people the opportunity to purchase homes denied to them in the open market. We request an urgent meeting with Housing Minister Darragh O’Brien to address this issue which raises fundamental questions about the Government’s affordable housing policy which it has tasked Dublin City Council to implement.
