Vacant Properties
Dail Éireann — 2026-07-14
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Jen Cummins (SD), Dublin South-Central

I appreciate that the HSE has gone through all of the steps it needs to. The challenge is that the country has a problem with housing. If we are giving away State-owned buildings and State-owned land - not giving it away but selling it on the open market - where are we going to start to develop things? There is fear in my constituency. The building should really be protected as an historic building and it should also be used either for healthcare accommodation needs or affordable housing in a housing crisis.
Why do we need to keep giving away and selling really valuable assets? This does not happen in other countries. That building is so beautiful. What will happen to it when it is sold on the open market? Will it become more really expensive apartments, which Dublin 8 is already littered with, or co-living or student accommodation? We have enough of these and we do not need any more of them. We need proper housing. We need young people to have a youth service in there or workers giving essential care to people not only in Dublin 8 but throughout the city and country who come from all over the place to James's Street, the Coombe and the new children's hospital.
Here we are again. This has been going on for a really long time, whereby we have beautiful buildings that no other State agency wants to take on. The HSE has to be called out for letting it go into such disrepair that now it will cost so much to bring it back up. That happened with the hospital on Baggot Street also. There have to be better fines for this. We should be fining the HSE for how it allowed the building to fall into disrepair since it got it. We should not celebrate the fact it will now make money by selling it on the private market and who knows what will happen. I am cross on behalf of my constituents because here we go again in Dublin 8. We will have more student accommodation, more hotels and more really expensive apartments.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-07-14/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-14T01:01:08+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-07-14