Mattie McGrath: Demolition of 52 Tipperary Houses 'Indefensible'

Count Cawler, thank you to Count Cawler for granting me this topical issue, it's a very important issue. I am disappointed, I have no disrespect to the Ministers here, is it Minister Fiennes taking the topical? That there is no Minister here from the Department of Housing. In a housing crisis and when we have a proposal to knock 52 almost complete houses in Cassian and Tipperary, the Tipperary County Council plans to demolish 52 partially completed houses under Part A development. A decision that defies logic in the middle of a national housing emergency, it just defies logic. These units are not mere shells, most of them are all finished, windows and doors, many of the windows and doors have been vandalised, no fault of the developer, I want to come to the Minster developer on such a fine sturdy mass concrete house, mass concrete foundations, mass concrete lintels down on Pile Driven in a very sliggy solid site overlooking the classroom, mass concrete floors, mass concrete walls, mass concrete floor ceilings and mass concrete ceilings on top as well. That is the kind of house we are dealing with. All the roofs bar one are perfect, one is slightly damaged, whether it is vandalism or weather. The units are not mere shells, many have windows, doors, plumbing, electrical and independent assessments described as solid structures far from derelict. With a number of developers, which is more important, expressing interest in redeveloping the site. Yet, instead of exploring refurbishment, Tipperary County Council is seeking to demolish them entirely. Demolish them entirely. There are 52 houses. We have 3,600 families and persons on the approved housing list in County Tipperary. And here we have 52, 1800s. We are going to meet our fine tree bed houses, spacious houses, luxury houses actually they could be, and are seeking to knock them. This is happening with over 3,600 people on the housing list. And there is huge housing demand across the county. It is indefensible that a viable housing stock is being destroyed, indefensible, rather than repurposed for private, social, affordable or indeed health facilities, health sort of accommodation. Even more concerning is the lack of transparency around the costs. An independent quantity surveillance report estimates €8 million for the demolition and remediation. Yet, the Tipperary County Council has continuously refused to release full costs under FOI to my office. The public and the elected representatives are being asked to accept a multi-million euro demolition without access to basic financial information needed to evaluate the site. Furthermore, they have been ordered not to visit the site. They were thought they could be trespassing, which is not true by the men that own the site. The Council states that the building was originally intended to choose accommodation and that the site is unzoned outside the settlement boundary. But now we know that has all changed. This is 20-year-old legislation. We are in the matters, as we know, and the national housing policy demands flexibility and re-use. Not rigid adherence to outdated classifications when thousands need homes. We need to think outside the box here. These houses were granted full planning commission. Full planning commission. A decision that was upheld in the courts over a long number of years. And now the same council that granted the planning commission are seeking to demolish them. I ask you, in this day and age, environmental policy is equally contradicted. Demolishing 52 concrete structures, creating over 13,582 tonnes of waste, runs against government commitments on sustainability and waste reduction, and defies and flies in the face of the principles of carbon and climate resilient development principles. The phrase, the greenest building is the one that is already built, acknowledges that the energy and carbon within these buildings and enormous loss of energy that has been used to construct those houses so far. I would like to thank Deputy McGrath for raising this matter, and I am glad to have the opportunity on behalf of James Brown, T.D., Minister of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, to clarify the position regarding the demolition of these partially completed houses at Ballypadine, Hachal in Tipperary. The Minister sends his apologies, he will be here in the House for five hours on the residential Tennessee bills, and he just sends his apologies that he could not attend this morning. Working to end dereliction and vacancy is a key priority in the Government's new housing plan, and delivering homes, building communities and the Government and the Housing Plan contain a range of measures to address dereliction. However, the reality is that some unfinished units cannot be saved and require demolition. In respect to the property referenced above, neither did derelict units in question, nor the site they were built on or owned by Tipperary County Council. The units were constructed over 20 years ago as a tourism accommodation ancillary to a permitted hotel. They were not designed, permitted or ever intended for permanent residential use and have remained incomplete for almost 20 years. The land in question is unzoned, poorly serviced and located outside the settlement boundary of Cashel. Were it deemed suitable for long-term social housing development, the local authority may have considered a CPO. However, there is no viable option to adapt the existing structures for residential use. The extent of work required to meet modern residential standards would be prohibitive and likely necessitate full demolition and reconstruction. I understand the Council is currently progressing a Part 8 planning application to remove the derelict structures as part of the agreed remediation approach. The future development of the lands after that remediation is complete and rests entirely with the owners and any proposals will be subject to the County Development Plan and statutory planning process. The Tipperary County Council's social housing delivery under Housing for All was ahead of target and is expected to continue its strong record of delivery under the Housing Plan, delivering homes and building communities. I firmly believe the commitment Government has made to address vacancy and dereliction and the actions under delivering homes, building communities will play a vital role in delivering homes across the country. Notwithstanding that, effective use of exchequer funding is essential and only viable projects should proceed. And it is unfortunate that some incomplete developments need to be demolished but in this case the demolition of these unfinished units is necessary given they are in private ownership and not suitable for long term residential use. Again I want to thank you for raising this very important issue and I hope this goes to some way to explain the rationale behind this decision and thanks for raising it. That's why we have no Minister for Housing Committee this morning to take my topic in. I handed a file to Minister Brown here six to eight weeks ago. Minister, I want to first of all thank Liam Campion's wife and family, builders and providers who are building apartments six-storey blocks in this city here today and in Court City. have been building for nearly 50 years and they have built a twin-towers estate they call and cashed a fine noble housing estate so these houses aren't semi-derdied. I'm going to ask the Minister, I thought I'd meet him today but I'll meet him later, our Minister Butterworth, come and visit this house, five minutes off the main aid we'll get him to decide these houses. They are suitable for any type of building and they are solid structures, the best I've ever seen in my long time and I have some experience in the game here. Mass concrete walls, ducting for all the wires and all the plumbing and everything else inside. So there's about 50 submissions gone in under the Part 8. But the Part 8 has kind of turned around its head because when I visited the site last Monday week with the owner, we met people there who were from a demolition company and they were asked to find out what they were there. They were there as a result of a need tender that was out two weeks before the Part 8 closed. The tender was out by Tip Council and in decent haste to demolish these houses. And they are ahead of the targets and I support the staff in Tip Raleigh County Council but I don't support senior management here and what they are doing. I attended a meeting with the CEO some time ago but she was unable to attend and I was taught at the meeting. I couldn't get answers from any directors. There are a lot of unanswered questions here. And you said to me that they were built with planning, they were built with full planning, with a hotel, 120 bed hotel planning as well. There are many estates around the country that were built likewise, hotels and accommodation. Many have been transformed now and turned into accommodation. Anything that could be done with them, from housing, from social housing, and we so badly need them, to indeed to a health facility, we need a 60-minute health facility minister there who knows it. In Cashflow we can't get a site for it. An ideal site. We are looking at a site in Paramount Hill which is much more unaccessible. This site is roadway now developed into it and it is as solid as the Rock of Cashflow and the houses are as solid as the Rock of Cashflow. And I think it is a crying shame and insanity to demolish these houses and cause that carbon footprint and dispose of all that. And leaving the site scoured, they are not removing the foundations or the bases. And they are talking about the view from the Rock of Cashflow. Is the view more important than houses for our families in Ireland? It seems with this government the views are more important and energy more important, but this is insanity. And the definition of insanity is, Conor Einstein, keep doing the same thing over and over again. I expect a different result, please halt this, halt this demolition and then re-evaluate it. Thank you and I want to thank Deputy McGrath for his useful information and I will bring that back to the Minister and the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage is focused on ensuring that existing house is utilised to its fullest extent and Government's new housing plan delivering homes, building communities reinforces and expands the range of measures being implemented by Government to work to end dereliction and long-term vacancy. One of these actions involves an expanded buy and renew scheme which is due to launch imminently. Minister Brown updated Government on Tuesday about the scheme. It will allow for suitable vacant and derelict buildings to be remediated back to rental standards and is designated as social homes. The scheme will be open to local authorities, approved housing bodies and small builders or contractors. And further information will be available in the coming weeks. And it will be a matter for all local authorities, including Tipperary County Council, to identify viable proposals and the Government does not intend to override these important local functions. My earlier comments said that it is unfortunate that some incomplete developments need to be demolished. But in the case of this particular Tipperary, demolition of these unfinished units is deemed necessary by the local authority, given they are in private ownership and not suitable for a long-term residential use. And you did outline that a lot of houses and apartments were built as part of hotel developments around the country. And a lot of them are not in use. And anything that we can do and the local authorities can do to bring them back into use, I think, is very, very useful and very helpful. However, on this occasion, the local authority, there are issues, obviously, and they haven't been able to address this issue. But again, Deputy McGrath, thanks for bringing this to the attention of the Dáil and I will raise it with the Minister when I see him later on.