Deirdre Forde: Mind-boggling councils didn’t buy key site amid housing crisis

The arson-destroyed red brick building, known as St Kevin’s Asylum, has been on the market since early this year.

However, the HSE’s reported offer of the building and 14 acres for €2.95m to both Cork City Council and Cork Council Council was rejected, according to Fine Gael councillor Deirdre Forde. The site is now on the open market.

Ms Forde succeeded yesterday at County Hall to have standing orders suspended to discuss the matter. It was mind-boggling, she said, in the midsts of a housing crisis, that neither council made an offer on the building and its land overlooking the Lee Fields.

I am calling now for the local authorities to come together with the HSE to acquire this valuable, iconic, site adjacent to all services and walking distance of city and suburbs and declare it a strategic housing zone, so development there can be fast-tracked,” she said.

The building was badly damaged by fire last year.

Ms Forde claimed she had been advised the HSE offered the site to statutory bodies, including the councils.

“There’s potential to develop new residential units in sections of the grounds, including multi-level apartment blocks, as well as in a reinstated and adapted main building,” she said.

Her party colleague, Derry Canty, supported her call but said the site in the city area was primarily a matter for the city council.

However, county council chief executive Tim Lucey asserted that the land was never offered to the council by the HSE.

Sinn Féin councillor Melissa Mullane said that both local authorities should have an input into transforming it into social housing.

“It’s owned by one arm of the State, we need to be more proactive in building houses, it should be handed over free of charge,” she said.

Fine Gael councillor Kevin Murphy believed the local authorities should acquire the building through a compulsory purchase order.

Members backed Fine Gael councillor Michael Hegarty’s proposal for the council’s property section enter into talks with counterparts in the HSE and city council to develop the site.