Daft Property - Irish Property News

UK firm in talks over ghost estates project... A BRITISH firm that wants to use ghost estates to train unemployed apprentices is to meet with the Minister for Housing and the Housing and Sustainable Communities Agency tomorrow. Equity Share Partnership (ESP) wants to use the unfinished properties to provide training and housing for the unemployed. It has begun negotiations with Nama, Fás and the banks to complete two pilot projects on ghost estates in Bandon, Co Cork, and Kilminchy, Co Laois. The company said it has financial backing to invest €10 million in the schemes and it hopes to begin work in December. The firm plans to buy the unfinished estates and take on apprentices and unemployed skilled and unskilled workers to complete them. Apprentices will continue to claim unemployment assistance, but they will be given the training necessary to complete their apprenticeships. Other workers will continue to claim unemployment assistance but, in return for their labour, they...

How do you solve a problem like Clongriffin? The bubble burst leaving the new north Dublin suburb in the lurch. Now designers and architects are figuring out what can be done to create a sense of community... SO WHAT do you do with a place that’s merely a fragment of what was planned? Clongriffin, on the north fringe of Dublin, was supposed to have a population of 30,000 to 40,000, with all the communal facilities they would need. But construction ground to a halt when the bubble burst, leaving the area’s residents high and dry. Enter Designing Dublin, a unique initiative by Design 21st Century, founded by Jean Byrne and Jim Dunne, who are both members of the Crafts Council of Ireland with backgrounds in business. Dunne was inspired by an exhibition at the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art about how design could address current challenges. They brought in Vannesa Ahuactzin, a young American architect who did a year’s programme at the Institute Without Boundaries in Toronto, which spe...