While Our People Cry Out For Homes, The Vultures Sit On Derelict Development Sites
Irish housing been broken for at least twenty years. So broken that the abnormal has become normal. So broken that individual housing scandals are lost in a myriad of individual dysfunctions, inefficiencies and injustices.
One such overlooked scandal is that of derelict development sites that are owned by vulture landlords - sites where housing should now stand, but instead they have lain idle for years on end.
In many cases they are derelict by design as the vultures believe the sites will generate greater profits in the future - either through ‘flipping’ them or through building on them. In the meantime, the sites lie derelict and over one million of our people are denied access to secure, affordable housing.
And for as long as demand so dramatically outstrips supply, vacancies in the private rental sector will remain low and rents will remain high. A win, win, win scenario for the vulture landlords.
The wider scandal of vulture landlords sitting on derelict development land is perhaps easier understood by looking at an individual vulture landlord as a form of case study.
The billionaire Comer Brothers are Ireland’s largest domestic landlords. They are also sitting on development sites that have been lying
The Comer Group - Ireland's largest domestic vulture landlord - is a multinational property empire founded by Galway brother’s Luke and Brian Comer, with an estimated worth of at least €3,000,000,000 (€3bn). This includes commercial and residential property in Ireland, Britain and Germany.
Within their property empire the Comers own close to 2,000 houses and apartments in Galway, Dublin, Cork, Meath, Kildare, Carlow, Wicklow, Sligo, Kilkenny and Westmeath.
In addition to these existing 2,000 homes, they also own a number of prime development sites that could be used for large volumes of housing. Three of the most high-profile sites are:
The Sentinel building in Sandyford, Dublin. The Comers have owned this eyesore it for a decade, during which time not one day of construction has been completed.
The Sentinel Building, Sandyford, Co Dublin. The Comers purchased this partially completed fourteen storey building in 2011 for just €850,000. Located within the Sandyford Business District and within a few hundred meters of the LUAS, the site is perfectly suited for housing.
In 2017 the Comers received planning permission to complete the development with 300 ‘live-work’ apartments but work never commenced.
The Comer Group believes that 1,300 homes could potentially be built on the site, but has never produced any detail plans of how this could be done. Ten years after the Comer brothers acquired The Sentinel it continues to blight the skyline of Sandyford as a monstrous tribute to a dysfunctional housing and planning system.
The Odeon site off Eyre Square, including St Patrick’s terrace where many of the homes are derelict.
The Odeon Portfolio, Eyre Square, Galway. This four-acre site in the heart of Galway City was acquired by the Comers in 2013 for circa €13,000,000 (€13m). At the height of the Celtic Tiger the same site, which was assembled over 12 years, was valued at €170,000,000 (€170m).
Eight years after the Comers snapped it up, no works have begun on the office, retail and residential development that the Comers are proposing to build on the site. Indeed, many of the existing houses on St Patrick’s Avenue within the Odeon site now lie in various stages of dereliction.
This during the worst housing crisis in the history of the Twenty-Six County state. Éirígí has previously highlighted this scandalous situation with a protest at St Patrick’s Avenue. Like The Sentinel site in Dublin, the Odeon is ideally located for a large housing development.
The Corrib, Great Southern Hotel in Galway has been owned by the Comers since 2013.
Corrib Great Southern Hotel, Galway. The derelict hotel building and the six acres of ground surrounding it were bought by the Comers for just €3,500,000 (€3.5m) in 2013. At the height of the Celtic Tiger, the developer Gerry Barrett had paid €30,000,000 (€30m) for the then operating hotel and land.
In the eight years that the Comers have owned the hotel is has become an increasingly dilapidated eyesore and a hotspot for anti-social behaviour, including several fires within the building.
Galway City Council signed off on demolition orders for the hotel in November 2020, with the demolition work expected to begin that December and last for four months. To date, no demolition work has been carried out and the Comers have yet to publish any concrete plans for the site.
As with The Sentinel and Odeon sites, the Corrib site is perfectly located for a large housing development, possibly student housing for the adjacent GMIT campus. Between them, these three sites could accommodate many hundreds of badly needed homes.
But instead they lie derelict, as the Comers sit back and watch the value of development land, the price of housing and rental rates climb ever higher.
Éirígí highlighting the scandal of derelict homes on St Patrick’s Avenue in the Odeon site, May 2021
These are just three of the development sites the Comers own and the Comers are just one of the many vulture landlords that are now operating in Ireland.
The vulture landlords are now operating on a large enough scale to distort the entire housing sector, driving up the cost of development land, construction costs, house prices and rental rates.
Éirígí is the only organisation in Ireland that is actively tracking the activities of the vulture landlords, including the sites where they have secured planning permission housing. You can see the scale of their Irish operation on our unique #TrackTheVultures map here.
Unlike the main opposition parties, Éirígí is calling for an outright ban on the corporate ownership of housing in Ireland. And beyond that we are campaigning for the creation of a new system of universal public housing or UP Housing.
UP Housing is the only system of housing that can permanently end the housing crisis and transform Irish society for the better in the process. Find out more about UP Housing here.
If you like what you read and you’re ready to play your part in the fight for housing justice, then get in touch with us today.