Prospect Hill apartments to be completed this year, says Council

Work on 58 apartments in Prospect Hill, Finglas is due to be completed later this year – almost 20 years after construction began.

The apartments, which have been earmarked by the council as social homes, will be ready to be moved into by the end of the year, the local authority has said.

In 2004, McCabe Builders began construction on the scheme on council owned land and entered into an agreement with DCC to supply it with 150 affordable homes and 35 senior citizen’s apartments.

However, McCabe Builders went into receivership in 2012, leaving the complex unfinished.

Dublin City Council then sought to purchase the apartments in Blocks 2 and 2A, which were incomplete at the time, so they could be used for social housing.

In 2014, Monami Construction announced that it was undergoing repair and refurbishment works on the apartments in question and expected to be completed in April 2014.

During this time the council released a report saying it anticipated the works would be finished in May and Clúid, an approved housing body, was already beginning the process of assigning homes to families.

However, that was eight years ago and the apartments have been lying empty ever since.

In the intermittent years, the apartments were flagged for not complying with fire-safety standards which required further repair works and thus, delays.

The apartments were also in the control of the National Asset Management Agency (NAMA) for a couple of years before being finally transferred over to Dublin City Council in early 2022.

As reported by Dublin Inquirer earlier this month, the cost of the remedial works needed to bring the apartments up to standard will be at least €6 million.

At the January council meeting, DCC revealed that contractors are currently on site and the works are expected to be completed in the third quarter of 2023.

Sinn Fein councillor for the area, Anthony Connaghan said there have been “many false dawns” for the development but has welcomed the news.

“This has been pushed out and pushed out,” he told Northside People.

“At long last, families should be moving into the apartments before the end of the year.”

Connaghan says that more details about how the homes will be managed will be finalised in the coming months.

“They could be given to an Approved Housing Body – such as Cluid – to manage,” he says.

“But we don’t know for certain at the moment.”

The council said that “there are good examples of this in place and it will be examined as an option.”