Workers’ Party Dublin City Councillor Éilis Ryan has condemned what she says is the hypocrisy of Dublin City officials opening housing exhibition on Vienna’s housing model, today (Tuesday, 2ndApril) while refusing to contemplate similar public housing schemes in Dublin.
Cllr. Ryan said:
“In 2016, I secured support from Dublin City Council for the ‘Vienna Model of Housing’ to be trialled at O’Devaney Gardens. Within a month, the proposal had been torn to shreds by Brendan Kenny and all the major parties on the council, who today tell the media it is the future of Dublin.
“It is hypocritical in the extreme for Dublin City Council management – and indeed many councillors – to reject this model of housing in the council chamber, but support it in the press.”
Ryan said the refusal to consider the model in 2016 has had real, negative consequences:
“In launching this week’s conference Brendan Kenny said the major obstacle for implementing the Vienna model in Dublin was the shortage of land. This was entirely predictable. Dublin City Council have systematically pursued a policy of giving public land to private developers for half a decade now.
“In 2016, when Kenny refused to implement my proposal for the Vienna model, I predicted that, years down the line, when the crisis had deepened further, the council would adopt the Vienna model but would realise it was not feasible because we had already given away all our land.”
Ryan concluded by calling for a moratorium on all use of public land for private housing:
“If the city council are serious about pursuing the Vienna model, they must now speak with their actions, and suspend all pending transfers of public land to private developers.
“This should include O’Devaney Gardens. Proper public housing on that site, on the lines of the Vienna model, can make real inroads in the housing crisis in the area. It is not too late to do this.”