DLR Refuse Éirígí Request To Reveal Cost Of Renting Herbert Hill
Responding to an Éirígí Freedom of Information request, Dún Laoghaire Rathdown County Council has refused to reveal how much rent it is paying for 87 apartments in the Herbert Hill development in Dundrum. The FOI request was submitted by Éirígí’s representative for the Rathdown area, Brian Leeson. Speaking from Dundrum Leeson said,
“I submitted a number of Freedom Of Information requests relating to Herbert Hill to both DLR and the Department of the Environment before Christmas. One of these requests was for a copy of the lease agreement that was signed between DLR and Real IS, the German pension fund that bought all 90 apartments in Herbert Hill. in 2019.
When the lease was eventually send out to me earlier this week it was heavily redacted with every reference to the rental rates and even the breakdown of apartment sizes blacked out.
DLR have informed me that the lease was heavily redacted ‘due to commercial sensitivities’. This is total nonsense as DLR are already locked into a 25-year lease for Herbert Hill, including eight inflation-linked rent reviews. Revealing the cost of renting Herbert Hill will have no bearing on the Herbert Hill deal or any other future deals that DLR might seek to negotiate.
When Fine Gael came to power in 2016 we were told that it was the start of a new era of transparent governance. And yet here we are four years later and DLR are trying to draw a cloak of secrecy over a backroom deal with a German pension fund - a deal that is costing the taxpayer tens of millions of euros.
DLR are quite open about the costs of delivering other forms of ‘social housing’. There was no secrecy about the cost of building 44 homes in the nearby Rosemount estate. There is no secrecy about the HAP limits and HAP budget in DLR. So why is there so much secrecy about Herbert Hill? What are DLR trying to hide?
Éirígí protest outside of Herbert Hill, December 2019.
I believe that the cost of renting Herbert Hill is going to be extremely high - potentially far higher than the cost of buying the entire development outright. If that is the case, DLR have good reason to try cover it up.
How are taxpayers supposed to evaluate the merits of the Enhanced Long-Term Social Housing Leasing Scheme when we have no idea how much it is costing us?
For my part I will continue to highlight this issue until all of the cost associated with the Herbert Hill deal have been made public.”
You can view the redacted pages from the Herbert Hill lease below.
You can find out about Éirígí’s proposal to end the housing crisis here.
If you’re interested in joining Éirígí and the fight for housing justice please fill in the application form here.
