Up To 10,000 Social Housing Flats In Dublin Could Be Demolished

There has been a call to demolish social housing in need of "significant regeneration" - a new report by Dublin City Council has suggested.

According to The Irish Times, the council's head of housing, Brendan Kenny, said that around 10,000 flats in the city are up to over 50 years old and should be torn down to make way for new housing.

Mr Kenny said that refurbishing the homes would come at a considerable cost but will not increase the housing stock and could take "many decades" to fix up.

While by "eliminating" the older blocks, the council could build higher-density housing which could triple the number of council flats to more than 30,000.

At the moment almost 20,000 people are on the council's housing waiting list.

The latest Budget said that 3,800 new social homes will be built next year while there will be an increase to the housing assistance scheme by €149 million.

Demolishing and re-building the social houses could take over a decade, Mr Kenny said, "We would build first, detenant, and then demolish, with a rolling programme over 10-15 years to eliminate all these complexes that, in effect, are not fit for purpose."