Residents move into €200m redevelopment

More than 350 residents of the condemned 1950s flat complex Fatima Mansions will begin moving into new homes from tomorrow, following a regeneration programme started more than four years ago.

Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and Lord Mayor of Dublin Catherine Byrne yesterday presented keys to Margaret Brophy (61), who will be the first tenant of the new development, along with her husband John and three sons.

"I moved to Fatima 34 years ago with my husband, who had been born and reared here. I reared all my children here and my grandchildren were reared here. I've never had a house or a garden before in my life."

While Mrs Brophy is looking forward to a new start, the houses will mean the most to young families, she says.

"All the young girls rearing families here shouldn't have to live in tiny flats. Now they'll have a back garden where smaller children can be let out to play. You'll know where they are, you'll know that they're safe. Nobody here ever had that before." Mrs Brophy's daughter and her four children are moving into their own house on Thursday.

The €200 million redevelopment of houses and apartments, along with a creche, shops, leisure centre and swimming pool, will replace the 360 flats which had become increasingly derelict since they were last refurbished, in the 1980s, and had been the site of severe social deprivation and drugs problems.

Of the 15 blocks of flats, built in the early 1950s on an 11-acre site adjacent to the Grand Canal, nine remain. One block was torn down 20 years ago and five were demolished to make way for construction of the first phase of the development.

Most of the tenants in the remaining flats will move into the new accommodation of 110 social houses and apartments within the next month.

The last nine flats, many of which are already vacant and have been boarded up by Dublin City Council, will be demolished under phase two, due to start before the end of the year.

A further 30 social housing units, along with 70 affordable homes and 396 private apartments, will be built under phase two, due for completion in 2008.

Known as the Fatima/Herberton development, the complex is likely to be renamed after a Dublin City Council competition.