Council admits it ‘never should have purchased’ ill-fated derelict Connaught Street houses
A senior Dublin City Council (DCC) official has admitted that the long-derelict Connaught Street homes in Phibsborough “should never have been purchased” by the local authority.
It emerged last month that refurbishment plans for 19 and 21 Connaught Street had been scrapped due to the worsening state of the buildings and spiralling costs to address them.
Speaking to councillors on Tuesday, DCC Senior Engineer Robert Buckle said the crumbling homes, which were compulsorily purchased by the council in April 2019, were bought without proper regard to their condition.
"Connaught Street is very, very unfortunate, because I think that because of the housing crisis, there was an effort within DCC to try and purchase properties regardless of their condition, to try and get more properties onto social housing,” he said.
"These properties … in my opinion, they should never have been purchased in the first instance,” he said. "Connaught Street, the front facade is completely fading away, peeling away and crumbling, and the foundation is not stable.”
The adjoining homes have been on and off DCC’s derelict sites register over the years, but have continued to steadily deteriorate in the council’s hands.
Mr Buckle said refurbishment of the properties to bring them into a liveable condition is now estimated at €1.7m, which was “just too much money” for two social homes.
The fate of the redbrick homes, which were originally bought for €350,000 each, remains up in the air, with Mr Buckle saying that a meeting scheduled for last week to discuss them didn’t happen.
He said he “hopes” the meeting will proceed within the next two weeks.
“For me the solution to bring those properties back to social housing is to actually demolish them, put in a foundation and rebuild,” he said.
Independent councillor Cieran Perry said he felt “obliged” to keep raising the issue of Connaught Street during the meeting.
"We have to keep screaming about that,” he said. “How can we criticise private ownership when we can’t maintain our own buildings.”
Mr Perry said that prior to media coverage last month, councillors were under the “illusion” that the project was proceeding in the background, “only to be told that nah, they’re not, but we didn’t bother to tell you.”
Mr Buckle previously told councillors that the Connaught Street properties were “a nightmare to resolve”, adding that changes had since been made to the procedure around purchasing derelict properties.