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A DEVELOPMENT of 56 new social housing units is to be built in Lohercannon after the Taoiseach approved funding of €11.6m for the project.
Leo Varadkar announced the funding on his visit to Tralee on Friday when he was in town at a Fine Gael party function to honour former TD and Minister Jimmy Deenihan.
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The funding will be supplied to Kerry County Council for the project. Cllr Jim Finucane of Fine Gael welcomed the news at the meeting of Tralee Municipal District councillors on Monday morning.
Plans for the development were first revealed by the Council in April 2015 with an envisaged start in 2017.
The area identified for the development was adjacent to the Ashgrove estate and the road leading down to the lock gates.
The area to the left of the Ashgrove estate (on the right) which was identified for social housing back in 2015.
Is that over 200,000 euro per unit?
That’s a bit rich!
I understand inflation. But, I can not imagine that when the last great social housing building boom in Tralee in the 1980’s with projects like the Balloonagh estate that it surely would not have cost anywhere as high an equivalent figure per unit for the time or the council would not have been able to build so many social housing estates for that baby boom generation.
I know the new regulations mean more expense due to achieving a higher BER rating.
But, this seems crazy as at this rate the state will become bankrupt before it can provide a full allocation of social housing to everyone who needs it at such a financial rate per unit?
Madness.