Up to two dozen people attended a hastily arranged protest outside of the Herbert Hill apartment complex in Dundrum on Saturday (Dec 7th). The protest was organised by the local Éirígí ciorcal (branch) in response to the news that DLR County Council have signed a secret deal with a German vulture fund to rent the entire development for the next 25 years.
Under the terms of the deal DLR, with the backing of the Department of Housing, have committed to paying 95% of current market rents for 87 one, two and three-bed apartments. The rent will be subject to an inflation-linked review every three years.
With breathtaking arrogance DLR have refused to reveal that rent that they have agreed to pay the vulture fund for the next quarter of a century.
Estimates place the initial annual rent at between €2,100,000 and €2,600,000 and the total 25 year rent at between €52,500,000 and €65,000,000. And that’s without the increases that will flow from the regular rent reviews.
Real IS, the German fund that bought Herbert Hill only weeks ago, is believed to have paid just €55,000,000 for the entire complex - less than the guaranteed rent that the state has now committed to paying them.
Speaking from the protest on Saturday, Éirígí’s local area representative, Brian Leeson said, “The Herbert Hill deal is the first to be signed under Eoghan Murphy’s Enhanced Long Term Social Housing Leasing Scheme. It breaks new ground in the collaboration between the government, the state and foreign vulture funds.
While Herbert Hill is only one development, Eoghan Murphy has made no secret that he hopes it will be the first of many. The sums of public money that are involved are staggering. If just 20 similar similar deals are signed, the state would be locked into paying one billion euro to the vultures.
The decisions that Murphy is taking today are going to restrict the budgets and tie the hands of governments and councils for the next 25 years. Éirígí is calling for all of the details of the Herbert Hill deal, including the rental rates, to be publicly revealed without delay.
We are also calling for the state to reopen negotiations with Real IS with a view to purchasing Herbert Hill outright. This is the only way to secure real value for the taxpayer, instead of squandering tens of millions of euros on rent.
The council tenants that are being allocated housing in Herbert Hill are being denied the full security of tenure that other council tenants have.
A couple in their mid-twenties today could find themselves facing eviction from their home as they enter middle-age. This represents a fundamental and dramatic attack on one of the key principles of ‘social housing’ as it has existed for decades. Nobody should be expected to accept this form of fake public housing.”