Five years after it was first planned, and after one of the longest planning sagas in recent Irish memory, construction has finally begun at the former Central Mental Hospital site in Dundrum, where 934 homes will rise in a development now known as Dun Bri.
The Housing Minister James Browne marked the start of works on Friday across two south Dublin projects: the Land Development Agency's scheme in Dundrum, where most of the apartments will be cost-rental or affordable purchase homes aimed at low and middle-income workers, and Emmet Gardens in Clonskeagh, where 129 apartments, 29 of them social homes and 100 starter purchase homes, are being built by the local authority.
"We are now delivering more social and affordable homes than at any other time in the history of the State," Mr Browne said, "and I am determined to ensure that this momentum continues."
The Dublin Delivery Push at a Glance
- Construction has started on 934 homes at Dun Bri, on the former Central Mental Hospital site in Dundrum.
- 753 will be cost-rental or affordable purchase homes, with 181 social homes, in blocks up to eight storeys.
- First homes are expected in the second half of 2028, with completion in late 2029 or early 2030.
- A further 129 social and starter homes are under way at Emmet Gardens in Clonskeagh.
- Budget 2027 allocated a record 11.92 billion euro to housing, including 5.6 billion in capital funding.
- Dublin sale prices fell 5.2 per cent year on year in the third quarter, the sharpest fall since 2014.
The cost of the courtroom
The Dundrum site's history explains the celebration. A first legal challenge delayed the scheme by two years and added at least 30 million euro to its 400 million euro cost, according to the LDA's chief executive John Coleman, the equivalent of 30,000 euro on every home. This week it emerged that the agency paid more than two million euro earlier this year to buy a dormer bungalow from a local developer who had taken a High Court challenge against the State's flagship scheme.
The deadline for further legal challenges has now closed. The Taoiseach Micheal Martin, who attended Friday's sod-turning, did not address that case directly but said the State had incurred "excessive costs in the courts for years on a lot of projects", as well as damaging delays in providing homes.
A market catching its breath
The construction push lands in a market that is cooling, at least in the capital. The latest Daft report shows Dublin sale prices fell 5.2 per cent in the year to the third quarter, accelerating over the summer, even as asking prices continue to edge up. Nationally, prices remain 44 per cent above their pre-pandemic levels, and the average asking price for a three-bed semi in Dublin stands at 635,000 euro.
Economists caution that the easing reflects buyers reaching the limits of what lending rules and support schemes allow, rather than a sudden abundance of supply. That is the gap Budget 2027's record 11.92 billion euro housing package, including three billion euro for 11,250 new-build social homes and a Help to Buy rise to 35,000 euro, is designed to close. Dundrum, at last, is the proof of concept: the first cost-rental homes are due in the second half of 2028, with the LDA's average cost-rent across its completed schemes standing at 1,450 euro a month.