{"id":326083,"date":"2026-08-20T20:04:41","date_gmt":"2026-08-20T20:04:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/326083\/"},"modified":"2026-08-20T20:04:41","modified_gmt":"2026-08-20T20:04:41","slug":"dunsink-city-would-have-population-density-of-the-bronx","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/326083\/","title":{"rendered":"Dunsink City would have population density of the Bronx"},"content":{"rendered":"

Where planning matters are concerned the key question to be asked is invariably qui bono? \u2013 who benefits?\u00a0<\/p>\n

In relation to the proposed Dunsink City Quarter we are told that the beneficiaries will be all the people who will be able to find a place to live in the 18,500 units which will accommodate tens of thousands of people.<\/p>\n

An eventual population of 45,000 has been cited, including by myself, but a reader has pointed out that an analysis of the documents that are available throws up several different figures. Uisce \u00c9ireann is planning for a population of up to 55,000, the Department of Education mentions 55,870;\u00a0 and the plan\u2019s own Transport Assessment has a total of 46,800.<\/p>\n

So, the eventual \u2018new city\u2019 might rival the current population of Waterford city. Now, ponder this: The 60,000 people who live in Waterford city including its expanded urban area occupy 85 square kilometres.\u00a0 The proposed city of 60,000 people at Dunsink will occupy 4.35 kilometres.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Which would mean a population density of 13,800 people per square kilometre. That is way higher than almost any large city you might think of including London. It is the same population density as the Bronx in New York and on the same scale as Manila and Delhi.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Dunsink city will have a population density half the level of Manhattan, one of the most densely populated high rise quarters on the planet, and almost three times the current population density of Dublin city.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This is the future it seems. Not only for the people of Dublin but for many other parts of the state too if they are to find places to accommodate the hundreds of thousands of immigrants who will make up 90% of projected population growth over the next 30 years.<\/p>\n

Who owns the land on which Dunsink City Quarter will be built?<\/p>\n

According to the research conducted by my reader, just under half of the 435 hectares at Dunsink are owned by Fingal County Council and other public bodies. Bord G\u00e1is is one of the latter but it is not mentioned in the plan and did not make a submission. Their lands are, however, zoned for housing with a potential for building up to 3,230 units.<\/p>\n

The more than 200 hectares owned by public bodies is valued at between \u20ac1.13 and \u20ac1.34 billion. The two main private owners with a direct interest in the proposal are Castlethorn Construction and Flynn and O\u2019Flaherty. Castlethorn owns 40.7 hectares which has an estimated value of \u20ac65 million while the 42.8 hectares owned by Flynn and O\u2019Flaherty could be worth around \u20ac68 million.<\/p>\n

The value of those lands would, of course, increase hugely when the housing units are built. Flynn and O\u2019Flaherty and Smorgs have a joint proposal to use 5 hectares for the construction of apartment blocks comprising up to 600 units. These could be worth in the region of \u20ac270 million at current sale prices.<\/p>\n

Smorg directors include David Hennessy and Enda O\u2019Meara \u2013 both of them directors of the Tifco group owned Pumpkinspice that has done well from IPAS contracts \u2013 but the company is ultimately owned through Trident by AEPF III 38 which is a Luxembourg registered SARL.\u00a0 Which is an entity controlled by the New York based assets management giant Apollo which had assets of $840,000,000,000\u00a0 \u2013 that\u2019s $840 billion \u2013 in 2025.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>New York HQ at Apollo Global Management (Wikimedia Commons)<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

To put that in context, Irish Gross National Product (GNP) or Gross National Income (GNI) (the 75% of GDP left after the corporations take their cut) was approximately $460 million in 2025.\u00a0 Which means that an entity that is worth twice the entire income of every company and person living in\u00a0 the Irish state is going to own a piece of north county Dublin.\u00a0 To go with all its other little pieces of course.<\/p>\n

One of which comes, as Apollo ultimately owns Pumpkinspice through Tifco, directly from your taxes. Apollo bought Tifco from our other great friends Goldman Sachs who you might recall from the bank bailout.<\/p>\n

There is lots more and I shall be relating it to you over the coming days as we need to know the cut of the jib of the lads who are planning to turn the fields and streams and wildlife habitat of Finglas and Blanchardstown into Gotham City.\u00a0 As Batman himself said to Bane, \u201cI came back to stop you.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Where planning matters are concerned the key question to be asked is invariably qui bono? \u2013 who benefits?\u00a0…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":326084,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[7483,128,122730,122731,2301,9,24,122732,63,129,131,130],"class_list":["post-326083","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-the-bronx","tag-apollo-global-management","tag-bronx","tag-dunsink-city","tag-dunsink-city-quarter","tag-immigration","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-north-county-dublin","tag-nyc","tag-the-bronx","tag-the-bronx-headlines","tag-the-bronx-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326083","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=326083"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326083\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/326084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=326083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=326083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=326083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}