# Populist parties force reduction in number of social and affordable homes



## ClubMan (18 Jan 2022)

Plans for St Teresa’s Gardens redevelopment scaled back
					

Number of homes delivered in development to be reduced, councillors told




					www.irishtimes.com
				




At least Labour, PBP and Green Party supported the scaling back of this redevelopment. But will probably moan about the lack of social and affordable housing in other contexts...


----------



## PGF2016 (18 Jan 2022)

Terrible article. The journalist doesn't go into why they supported scaling back the development. In the example of the Green Party Councillor he had 'No problem with the height'. It's hard to criticize without knowing the full facts.


----------



## odyssey06 (18 Jan 2022)

Better to have a smaller development more appropriate to the location, welcomed by the community, than an over-development which isn't supported and is held up in planning and objections. Have seen this in multiple places.


----------



## ClubMan (18 Jan 2022)

Fine, but then they should quit moaning about people not being able to live in Dublin city centre because of lack of supply. Can't have it both ways. Although populist politicians like to make it seem like you can.


----------



## PGF2016 (18 Jan 2022)

ClubMan said:


> Fine, but then they should quit moaning about people not being able to live in Dublin city centre because of lack of supply. Can't have it both ways. Although populist politicians like to make it seem like you can.


Thankfully we don't have populist politicians in power but those who are ready and willing to make tough decisions that may not be popular but are the right thing to do. e.g. water charges, lock downs (meaningful Christmas) etc. . 

Oh wait...


----------



## PGF2016 (18 Jan 2022)

Would love to know which politician isn't populist.


----------



## ClubMan (18 Jan 2022)

PGF2016 said:


> Would love to know which politician isn't populist.


Probably some of those who lost their deposits.


----------



## Shirazman (18 Jan 2022)

PGF2016 said:


> Would love to know which politician isn't populist.



One or two of the members of Seanad Eireann - the ones who don't bother holding clinics.


----------



## Purple (20 Jan 2022)

PGF2016 said:


> Would love to know which politician isn't populist.


Unfortunately we get the politicians we deserve, or we will soon,


----------



## ClubMan (29 Jan 2022)

Not in my back yard: Green Minister for Community opposes public housing just yards from his own home
					

The Government minister in charge of community development is opposing public housing being built just 25 yards behind his own house.




					www.independent.ie


----------



## Mocame (29 Jan 2022)

ClubMan said:


> Not in my back yard: Green Minister for Community opposes public housing just yards from his own home
> 
> 
> The Government minister in charge of community development is opposing public housing being built just 25 yards behind his own house.
> ...


This is a real example of rank hypocrisy in my opinion  This TD wants a right to housing inserted into the construction but opposes any practical action to realise that right in practice by actually providing housing for people who can't afford to secure it on the market.  He also wants more sustainable public transport and settlement patterns but opposes action to densify land use adjacent to the train station in Skerries.

I consider myself left wing politically, think there is an urgent need for more social housing and have usually voted Labour.  However I have come to the conclusion that many politicians on the left don't really want any actual social housing provided (or indeed any housing) because they oppose every single development because it has some shortcoming.  Every housing proposal must be prefect it seems and the perfect is the enemy of the good.


----------



## ClubMan (5 Feb 2022)

More of the same including the local PBP councillor objecting to development...








						Killiney planning: ‘There is no way housing built on that strip of land would help solve the crisis’
					

Should Dalkey be exempt from large-scale development? Councillors believe coast is unsuited to such house-building but regulator disagrees




					www.irishtimes.com


----------



## Brendan Burgess (6 Feb 2022)

I couldn't follow the map in that article, but it does seem to me that such a widely used area with people accessing the beach should not have housing developed on it.

Just because someone objects to housing in a specific area does not mean that they are hypocrites. I would object if Dublin City Council decided to build social housing on St. Stephen's Green.

Brendan


----------



## ClubMan (12 Feb 2022)

The next generation of Shinners don't want people to own their own home...?



			https://twitter.com/Ogra_SF/status/1457772024651083790


----------



## PebbleBeach2020 (12 Feb 2022)

This is just my opinion from political experience and knowledge. Hopefully this doesn't constitute me being banned from the site.

Sinn Fein are actively trying to make the housing crisis worse for their own benefit. They object to developments all over the country. Their leader Mary Louise objects in Dublin. Eoin objects as well. Cllrs object routinely to developments around the country. All this slows down or blocks development be it private housing, private rental, social, affordable, cost rental etc. This makes a bad problem, worse.

Now, in all speeches SF refer to what they WOULD do if in government. They would freeze rents. They'd prevent landlords taking back vacant possession if they needed their house or apartment for themselves, their family or if they needed to sell it. What does this do? It spooks current landlords and brings uncertainly into people's minds. SF are likely to be in government no later than summer of 2025. So these landlords start selling up (this is happening right now). So less properties for rent, rents go higher, and it makes a bad problem or situation worse again.

SF are actually making the rental and housing crisis worse and they are becoming more popular as a result.

Again, I'd stress, this is my reading of it. We actually need SF in power so people can see what they are like. I just hope that SF don't do any long term damage with some of their hair brain proposals.


----------



## jpd (13 Feb 2022)

In theory, communism is great - the problem is that it doesn't work in practise


----------



## ClubMan (13 Jun 2022)

BreakingNews.ie: Cabra build-to-rent scheme loses out amid opposition from Mary Lou McDonald.








						Cabra build-to-rent scheme loses out amid opposition from Mary Lou McDonald | BreakingNews.ie
					

The appeals board refused planning permission for the 67 one bed unit and 50 two-bed unit apartment scheme at Faussagh Avenue, Cabra




					www.breakingnews.ie


----------



## Brendan Burgess (14 Jun 2022)

Brendan Burgess said:


> Just because someone objects to housing in a specific area does not mean that they are hypocrites. I would object if Dublin City Council decided to build social housing on St. Stephen's Green.



As I said before, all housing developments are not appropriate, even if we are in a housing crisis.

The Cabra development was refused permission by both the local authority and An Bord Pleanála.

It is perfectly valid to campaign for more housing and to object to specific developments.

Or is it implied that someone who campaigns for more housing can never object to any house development? 

Brendan


----------



## NoRegretsCoyote (14 Jun 2022)

Brendan Burgess said:


> As I said before, all housing developments are not appropriate, even if we are in a housing crisis.


I think you're right Brendan. It's a very easy "gotcha" by the media.


To my mind this is an issue of degeee, not of absolutes.

If a TD is objecting to 80% of large-scale developments then it's fair to criticise them as being anti-development. If it's 20% then it's more likely that there are specific concerns.

I've never seen a news article that contextualises this very well.


----------



## Purple (14 Jun 2022)

Brendan Burgess said:


> As I said before, all housing developments are not appropriate, even if we are in a housing crisis.
> 
> The Cabra development was refused permission by both the local authority and An Bord Pleanála.
> 
> ...


She objected because they were build to rent. That's an ideological objection, not a planning suitability one. I know the area well. There's no reason not to build there.


----------



## Brendan Burgess (14 Jun 2022)

Hi Purple - I don't know the site, but let's assume that there is no reason not to build there as you suggest. But was the proposal appropriate? 

This is what An Bord Pleanála said, as quoted by the Irish Times. 

_In its formal refusal, the appeals board stated that the scheme would represent a visually prominent and monolithic form of development. It also concluded that the scheme would be visually obtrusive and seriously detract from the visual amenities of the area.

The appeals board also refused permission after finding that the scheme would fail to provide adequate residential amenities for future occupants. The board made this finding due to the number of single-aspect apartments in the scheme; the design of excessively long internal corridors with lack of natural light and adequate ventilation and overlooking between apartments.


The refusal by the board follows a recommendation by Dublin City Council to deny planning permission._


----------



## Brendan Burgess (14 Jun 2022)

Purple said:


> She objected because they were build to rent. That's an ideological objection, not a planning suitability one.



If a site is suitable for 100 apartments, I should be allowed build them and then decide if I want to let them or sell them. 

It doesn't seem as if McDonald's objection was the reason they were refused? 

_However, in her objection, Ms McDonald argued that the build-to-rent development does not meet the needs of the local community, neither does it foster active citizenship.

“Build-to-rent developments are about maximising profits for developers through inflated rental costs which in turn pushes up the value of land and house price inflation in the city,” she said._

I presume that if more apartments are built in an area, the cost of rent will fall. 

Brendan


----------



## Purple (14 Jun 2022)

Brendan Burgess said:


> I presume that if more apartments are built in an area, the cost of rent will fall.


Not in Shinnerland. In Shinnerland all private business is baaad.


----------



## odyssey06 (14 Jun 2022)

To me, most of the objections except ventilation & overlooking between apartments seem spurious.

Seriously, corridors without natural light and apartments not being dual aspect?


----------



## NoRegretsCoyote (14 Jun 2022)

odyssey06 said:


> To me, most of the objections except ventilation & overlooking between apartments seem spurious.



The problem with planning is its complete and utter vagueness. A decision never says things like: "on this site you may construct no more than a 30mx30mx15m building". It's all about "visual amenity" and uses subjective terms like "obtrusive", "monolithic", "character of the neighbourhood", etc, etc.

There is no real standard for harm to neighbouring properties either. It's very easy to calculate how much sunlight will be lost by a new structure, and how far windows will be from existing ones. But it's very hard to find a clear, objective standard as to what is and is not acceptable in a planning decision.

I mean on AAM someone can ask a question about how to make gifts to family members to avoid tax and how it will be treated by Revenue. Posters will point them to the law, the guidance, and relevant practice. You will generally get a very good idea of what you want to do is inside the rules or not. It's the same in the areas of law I deal with professionally where there is much greater certainty involved, both in the primary legislation and how it is implemented administratively. 


But whenever I read a planning decision I am left utterly stumped. It's never clear what exact feature or dimension caused the rejection, and what adjustment would cause acceptance. It seems like a vast waste of time and money for everyone involved.


----------



## PebbleBeach2020 (14 Jun 2022)

There will be lovely visual amenties and aspects for the people when they are sleeping on benches, ditches and tents. Planners should work with developers and say this would be acceptable as an alternative. That, at a minimum is required in a national emergency. Mary Louise saying build-to-rent isn't fostering an active neightbourhood. In other words, all private sales, would that be acceptable to her? Or does she want to bang her drum about social housing and nothing else. Who the hell pays for this social housing? Big corporate Ireland? Fat cat landlords with one property rented out for their pension. SF are in cuckoo land and people need a dose of them in government to soften their cough. Unfortunately, the damage they could potentially do to the long-term development in Ireland of attracting FDI and investment could be very bad.

In a housing crisis, I will take 100 build-to-rent apartments over nothing being built. If the rents are too dear, they can lie idle. If investors want to leave them lie idle, hit them with a vacant tax. But get supply built and availability increasing. 35 properties to rent in Cork City this morning and some of those are shared accommodation, so the owner has posted in the wrong section on Daft. 354 properties to rent in Dublin City.

In comparison, on Rightmove this morning, there's 25,198 properties to rent in London. If you look at it from a ratio perspective, there's one property to rent in London right now for every 354 people who live in London. In Dublin, there's one property to rent right now for every 1,624 people who live there. There in lies your problem. It's Supple stupid. Get supply, be it private sales, private rental, build-to-rent, cost-rent, social housing, increasing. No one thing will solve the problem, but each one thing will chip away at the problem and contribute to its resolution in time.


----------



## Paul O Mahoney (14 Jun 2022)

Imagine if we solved the housing crisis, the health crisis and whatever is deemed to be a crisis by the media and politicians , wed probably never need an election again.

And is it possible? 5m of us and with a good level of wealth, an educated population in the main and small enough geographically.

But every time a solution is proposed it usually is shot down by the same political entities that are crying blue murder.

" Half a crust is better than nothing "


----------



## Silversurfer (15 Jun 2022)

PebbleBeach2020 said:


> There will be lovely visual amenties and aspects for the people when they are sleeping on benches, ditches and tents. Planners should work with developers and say this would be acceptable as an alternative. That, at a minimum is required in a national emergency. Mary Louise saying build-to-rent isn't fostering an active neightbourhood. In other words, all private sales, would that be acceptable to her? Or does she want to bang her drum about social housing and nothing else. Who the hell pays for this social housing? Big corporate Ireland? Fat cat landlords with one property rented out for their pension. SF are in cuckoo land and people need a dose of them in government to soften their cough. Unfortunately, the damage they could potentially do to the long-term development in Ireland of attracting FDI and investment could be very bad.
> 
> In a housing crisis, I will take 100 build-to-rent apartments over nothing being built. If the rents are too dear, they can lie idle. If investors want to leave them lie idle, hit them with a vacant tax. But get supply built and availability increasing. 35 properties to rent in Cork City this morning and some of those are shared accommodation, so the owner has posted in the wrong section on Daft. 354 properties to rent in Dublin City.
> 
> In comparison, on Rightmove this morning, there's 25,198 properties to rent in London. If you look at it from a ratio perspective, there's one property to rent in London right now for every 354 people who live in London. In Dublin, there's one property to rent right now for every 1,624 people who live there. There in lies your problem. It's Supple stupid. Get supply, be it private sales, private rental, build-to-rent, cost-rent, social housing, increasing. No one thing will solve the problem, but each one thing will chip away at the problem and contribute to its resolution in time.


We should be careful what we wish for. Modular houses are being built for Ukrainian refugees. The build time will be 16 weeks. The lifetime of these modular homes is 60 years. This I suspect will be extended to house our ‘houseless’. As I am old enough to remember the social experiment that was Ballymun this could end up being similar. On a train journey through the UK recently I saw many permanent static caravan sites.


----------



## PGF2016 (15 Jun 2022)

Silversurfer said:


> We should be careful what we wish for. Modular houses are being built for Ukrainian refugees. The build time will be 16 weeks. The lifetime of these modular homes is 60 years. This I suspect will be extended to house our ‘houseless’. As I am old enough to remember the social experiment that was Ballymun this could end up being similar. On a train journey through the UK recently I saw many permanent static caravan sites.


Why do you think this could end up being similar to Ballymun?


----------



## Silversurfer (15 Jun 2022)

PGF2016 said:


> Why do you think this could end up being similar to Ballymun?


Most of the occupants in Ballymun were in receipt of social welfare or had low income jobs. It became a ghetto. I am sure there is a more politically correct name. After Ballymun was demolished the best practice was to house people in mixed estates. Hence our current model of social housing. By grouping people by socio economic category together it will create the same again.


----------



## Purple (15 Jun 2022)

PGF2016 said:


> Why do you think this could end up being similar to Ballymun?


There was nothing wrong with the buildings in Ballymun.


----------



## Silversurfer (15 Jun 2022)

Purple said:


> There was nothing wrong with the buildings in Ballymun.











						Ballymun Flats - Wikipedia
					






					en.m.wikipedia.org


----------



## Silversurfer (15 Jun 2022)

Purple said:


> There was nothing wrong with the buildings in Ballymun.


There was nothing wrong with the buildings. It was the grouping together of people who were socially deprived that caused drug abuse, crime and poverty. Those that could move out did but many others could not.


----------



## PGF2016 (15 Jun 2022)

Silversurfer said:


> Most of the occupants in Ballymun were in receipt of social welfare or had low income jobs. It became a ghetto. I am sure there is a more politically correct name. After Ballymun was demolished the best practice was to house people in mixed estates. Hence our current model of social housing. By grouping people by socio economic category together it will create the same again.


I suppose the only difference now is that it's not just the unemployed or deprived who are unable to purchase a home. There are many gainfully employed people who can't due to a lack of supply.


----------



## Purple (15 Jun 2022)

PGF2016 said:


> I suppose the only difference now is that it's not just the unemployed or deprived who are unable to purchase a home. There are many gainfully employed people who can't due to a lack of supply.


It's not just due to lack of supply. We need to get away from the notion that supply is the reason for the massive increase in price. That's down to the massive increase in the supply of money.


----------



## lff12 (1 Jul 2022)

Brendan Burgess said:


> As I said before, all housing developments are not appropriate, even if we are in a housing crisis.
> 
> The Cabra development was refused permission by both the local authority and An Bord Pleanála.
> 
> ...


Unfortunately there are reps who object to every single proposal in their areas!


----------



## lff12 (1 Jul 2022)

Silversurfer said:


> There was nothing wrong with the buildings. It was the grouping together of people who were socially deprived that caused drug abuse, crime and poverty. Those that could move out did but many others could not.


There was a range of issues in Ballymun - the design of the towers made them hard to maintain and eventually the council fell so far behind on basic maintenance that basic amenities like lifts were left not working. Secondly, yes, there was a large concentration of people who were out of work - but this was exacerbated by the location which at the time was nowhere near centres of work. Transport and local services did not follow the developments and there were several stages where there were concerns about the last bank branch closing etc. Finally, drugs came to Ballymun and finished off all of the other problems.

Flats were not actually that bad - my mother had a couple of second cousins in them, but they didn't stay there.


----------



## Silversurfer (1 Jul 2022)

lff12 said:


> There was a range of issues in Ballymun - the design of the towers made them hard to maintain and eventually the council fell so far behind on basic maintenance that basic amenities like lifts were left not working. Secondly, yes, there was a large concentration of people who were out of work - but this was exacerbated by the location which at the time was nowhere near centres of work. Transport and local services did not follow the developments and there were several stages where there were concerns about the last bank branch closing etc. Finally, drugs came to Ballymun and finished off all of the other problems.
> 
> Flats were not actually that bad - my mother had a couple of second cousins in them, but they didn't stay there.


Ballymun was built as a solution to the need for social housing for 3000 people.  The flats had central heating and were larger than most corporation houses of that time. Maybe not all facilities were there but it had a swimming pool. Which was a rare luxury in Ireland! Ballymun was next door to Santry, Collins Avenue, Glasnevin Ave (Ballymun Ave) and Ballymun Road all of which had the same transport links to available employment….


----------



## Purple (1 Jul 2022)

lff12 said:


> There was a range of issues in Ballymun - the design of the towers made them hard to maintain and eventually the council fell so far behind on basic maintenance that basic amenities like lifts were left not working. Secondly, yes, there was a large concentration of people who were out of work - but this was exacerbated by the location which at the time was nowhere near centres of work. Transport and local services did not follow the developments and there were several stages where there were concerns about the last bank branch closing etc. Finally, drugs came to Ballymun and finished off all of the other problems.
> 
> Flats were not actually that bad - my mother had a couple of second cousins in them, but they didn't stay there.


The main problem with the flats was a significant minority of the people who lived in them. The same thing happens whenever such developments are built anywhere in the world. It is to the credit of successive governments that they have not built such developments again, even in the face of the pressure they are under to deliver social housing.


----------



## odyssey06 (1 Jul 2022)

Purple said:


> The main problem with the flats was a significant minority of the people who lived in them. The same thing happens whenever such developments are built anywhere in the world. It is to the credit of successive governments that they have not built such developments again, even in the face of the pressure they are under to deliver social housing.


If you look at the places the people in Ballymun were relocated from, and other locations they were relocated to - did they not develop similar issues as Ballymun?

Had Ballymun been used as accomodation for airport workers, Beaumont hospital workers or students, and maintained properly, perhaps they would still be going ok today.


----------



## Groucho (1 Jul 2022)

lff12 said:


> There was a range of issues in Ballymun - the design of the towers made them hard to maintain and eventually the council fell so far behind on basic maintenance that basic amenities like lifts were left not working.



Can you remember reading about the annual costs of repairing those lifts?  They were jaw-droppingly astronomical - and, it was often said (off the record, naturally) by Dublin Corporation officials that a minority of the tenants made it their duty to vandalise them as soon as they had been repaired.


----------



## lff12 (1 Jul 2022)

Silversurfer said:


> Ballymun was built as a solution to the need for social housing for 3000 people.  The flats had central heating and were larger than most corporation houses of that time. Maybe not all facilities were there but it had a swimming pool. Which was a rare luxury in Ireland! Ballymun was next door to Santry, Collins Avenue, Glasnevin Ave (Ballymun Ave) and Ballymun Road all of which had the same transport links to available employment….


Its a good 30 minutes walk to Santry from where the Towers used to stand! Poor public transport was a major bugbear in the area for a long time.


----------



## lff12 (1 Jul 2022)

odyssey06 said:


> If you look at the places the people in Ballymun were relocated from, and other locations they were relocated to - did they not develop similar issues as Ballymun?
> 
> Had Ballymun been used as accomodation for airport workers, Beaumont hospital workers or students, and maintained properly, perhaps they would still be going ok today.


I'm going to heavily disagree with that. My father grew up in the same tenements many of the Ballymun people would have. And I recall he had a neighbour who ended up living in Biscayne in Malahide. My relatives who live there started out in Coolock - but so did the vast majority of their families most of whom did not end up in social housing at all.


----------



## odyssey06 (1 Jul 2022)

lff12 said:


> I'm going to heavily disagree with that. My father grew up in the same tenements many of the Ballymun people would have. And I recall he had a neighbour who ended up living in Biscayne in Malahide. My relatives who live there started out in Coolock - but so did the vast majority of their families most of whom did not end up in social housing at all.


"Most of whom did not end up in social housing at all"

But what about the ones who stayed in social housing.

The people who could get up and go got up and left. It's the people who were left behind, either in the tenement area or in the social housing areas they were relocated to, I'm talking about. There aren't many flats in Darndale, does that not have similar social issues?


----------



## lff12 (1 Jul 2022)

odyssey06 said:


> "Most of whom did not end up in social housing at all"
> 
> But what about the ones who stayed in social housing.
> 
> The people with get up and go got up and left. It's the people who were left behind, either in the tenement area or in the social housing areas they were relocated to.


We had a few relatives who had social housing in Tallaght and Priorswood, only one of whom fell into the kind of dysfunction that Ballymun was known for - and by the way lots of people who grew up in Ballymun finished school, got jobs and led normal lives too.


----------



## odyssey06 (1 Jul 2022)

lff12 said:


> We had a few relatives who had social housing in Tallaght and Priorswood, only one of whom fell into the kind of dysfunction that Ballymun was known for - and by the way lots of people who grew up in Ballymun finished school, got jobs and led normal lives too.


Well to me it's an open question how much the issues in Ballymun were down to the concept of the flats themselves versus the particular population that was relocated there / poor maintenance / transport links. Presumably also over time as Ballymun acquired a certain reputation either for the poorly maintained state of the flats / area / social issues that people on the social housing list opted elsewhere as much as they could, so the people who ended up there were not a random distribution of people from the social housing list.

Even if the consensus is flats bad for social housing, I stand over my earlier comment:
_Had Ballymun been used as accomodation for airport workers, Beaumont hospital workers or students, and maintained properly, perhaps they would still be going ok today._


----------



## lff12 (1 Jul 2022)

odyssey06 said:


> Well to me it's an open question how much the issues in Ballymun were down to the concept of the flats themselves versus the particular population that was relocated there / poor maintenance / transport links. Presumably also over time as Ballymun acquired a certain reputation either for the poorly maintained state of the flats / area / social issues that people on the social housing list opted elsewhere as much as they could, so the people who ended up there were not a random distribution of people from the social housing list.
> 
> Even if the consensus is flats bad for social housing, I stand over my earlier comment:
> _Had Ballymun been used as accomodation for airport workers, Beaumont hospital workers or students, and maintained properly, perhaps they would still be going ok today._


I still think this is perception rather than reality - there were some horribly rough council estates in the 80s and early 90s, not just Ballymun. Tho a singer in choir I conducted in the 90s, who retired from in rent payments section of the corpo a couple of years earlier did say to me that "bad payers" were put in Ballymun - again, as I say, its anecdotal and perception rather than definitive evidence. Given the collapse of social housing builds after the LDF was abolished by McSharry in 1987, you had to be pretty poor to get social housing at all after 1987.


----------



## Silversurfer (1 Jul 2022)

lff12 said:


> Its a good 30 minutes walk to Santry from where the Towers used to stand! Poor public transport was a major bugbear in the area for a long time.


Shanard and Shanliss are very close to Ballymun!


----------



## odyssey06 (1 Jul 2022)

lff12 said:


> I still think this is perception rather than reality - there were some horribly rough council estates in the 80s and early 90s, not just Ballymun. Tho a singer in choir I conducted in the 90s, who retired from in rent payments section of the corpo a couple of years earlier did say to me that "bad payers" were put in Ballymun - again, as I say, its anecdotal and perception rather than definitive evidence. Given the collapse of social housing builds after the LDF was abolished by McSharry in 1987, you had to be pretty poor to get social housing at all after 1987.


That's kinda along the lines of what I suspected. I think both your points and mine while differing in some respects are both to the point that the perception of Ballymun is not the whole story, and the real story is much more complex. The posts on this thread have been deeper than the vast majority of coverage of Ballymun in media and political commentary.


----------



## lff12 (7 Jul 2022)

odyssey06 said:


> That's kinda along the lines of what I suspected. I think both your points and mine while differing in some respects are both to the point that the perception of Ballymun is not the whole story, and the real story is much more complex. The posts on this thread have been deeper than the vast majority of coverage of Ballymun in media and political commentary.


Exactly - and remember that Ballymun played a critical role as "housing of last resort" for social tenants in the city after 1980 or so. This role disappeared after the demolition leaving the council entirely dependent on emergency housing only or PRS. Sizing was considerably bigger than city centre, for example and its fair to say that services in the city were depleting rapidly as jobs vacated the city first, followed soon by schools and hospitals. Its part was in the context of a hollowing out of the inner city and dedensification in general.


----------

