Dublin City Council to cut capital budget by over 50%

SEVERE CUTS in funding for social housing, roads, sports and cultural facilities are planned for the next three years in Dublin with a reduction of more than 50 per cent in the city’s capital investment budget.

Dublin City Council has drafted an infrastructure programme for each year from 2012-2014 totalling €897.8 million, less than half of the €1.859 billion capital budget for 2009-2011.

Housing and road programmes will suffer some of the largest reductions, with spending slashed by almost three-quarters and two-thirds respectively.

However, the council is increasing its budget for water supply and sewerage infrastructure. It is also investing in the expansion of the hugely popular Dublin bikes rental scheme, refurbishment of the Victorian fruit and vegetable market and Grafton Street area upgrade.

Funding for social housing, which has been the council’s largest area of capital spending, has fallen from €1.14 billion in 2009-2011 to just €353 million for the next three years, despite an acknowledgement by the council that housing need is increasing.

One-third of the housing budget has been allocated for the completion of the Ballymun regeneration scheme by 2014, leaving €236 million for social housing for the rest of the city. In 2009 the council planned an output of 4,772 social and affordable units over three years. For the next three years it plans to construct just 226 social houses. No affordable housing will be built following the Government decision to end the scheme.

Almost all of this housing will be in the estates which were to have been rebuilt by Bernard McNamara – St Michael’s, O’Devaney Gardens and Dominick Street – before the property collapse.

The number of houses the council plans to acquire will also be cut. In 2011 alone it bought 129 properties to accommodate people on the housing waiting list, including the homeless. For the next three years fewer than 175 units will be bought, the council said, and only if Government funding is made available. In the coming years the council will move more towards a role as an “enabler” of voluntary housing bodies it said.

The last three-year road budget was more than €171 million, the next will be less than €64 million. The only significant new construction project will the Marlborough Street public transport bridge needed to facilitate the planned Luas BXD line. Road improvements are planned at a number of locations, but some projects would be dependent on Government funds, which would be limited, the council said.

Proportionally the biggest drop in funding is for culture, sport and leisure. In the last three-year block more than €56 million was allocated. For the next three years funding will not exceed €16 million. Funding for swimming pools has gone from €26 million to €5 million. But the council said the provision of sport and leisure centres was completed in 2010. The upgrade of older pools would take place on a phased basis.

Some areas will experience greater investment than previously. Just under €370 million has been allocated for water and sewerage programmes, up from €285 million in 2009-2011.

The controversial Clontarf flood defences are included, as are flood relief works on the river Dodder on the southside and the river Wad in Donnycarney.

The extension of the Ringsend sewage plant is also set to begin. However, with a price tag of €220 million, funding will be required from the Department of the Environment, the council said.

Work towards piping water from Lough Derg on the Shannon, will also be progressed, as will the extension to the Ballymore Eustace drinking water works.

Expansion of the Dublin bikes rental scheme is due to begin next year. A five-year plan for the increase from 550 up to 5,000 bikes in 14 phases was published last December.