Here’s a summary of the key points from the report:
1. Initial Projected Cost:
Initially estimated at €200,000 per residential unit.
By June 2024, the average projected cost increased to around €436,000, a rise of nearly 120%.
2. Current Projections:
The Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration, and Youth projected total costs of €289.3 million.
This indicates a final estimated average cost per unit of approximately €442,000.
3. Fluctuations in Units:
Originally, 500 modular units were planned.
This increased to 700 units in July 2023, then scaled back to 654 units by July 2024.
4. Project Delays:
The original completion date was February 2023.
The new projected completion date is now April 2025.
5. Pilot Project:
The project began in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine to provide rapid-build modular accommodation.
The Office of Public Works (OPW) developed a proposal for 500 modular units across 20 sites, with a budget of €100 million (€200,000 per unit).
The pilot program was approved by the government in June 2022.
6. Cost Increases:
By January 2023, the cost per unit had risen to €310,000 (a 55% increase).
Costs increased further due to site development issues and abnormal conditions.
In January 2023, the OPW estimated the cost of delivering 700 units at €237 million (€339,000 per unit), 70% higher than the original estimate.
7. Lack of Formal Approval:
Formal approval for revised costs and outputs was not obtained from the government until July 2023, months after the OPW instructed the main contractor to acquire more units.
The Department of Public Expenditure sanctioned the increased expenditure in September 2023.
8. Multiple Revisions:
Between July 2023 and January 2024, the estimated program delivery cost was revised four times.
GerKoll on
Amazon has container houses for 25K (plus 5.50 for delivery) and they are in stock……
badger-biscuits on
CrispsInTabascoSauce on
Corruption here, corruption there, nothing new.
ahhereyang1 on
So building modular homes for more the cost of a normal house
Dangerous_Treat_9930 on
Even 200k is a crazy cost for whats basically a chalet.. You would get better log cabins for 30k
Double it is a joke. 450k for a portacabin.
Man this country is a joke
jhanley on
The Mayor of Limerick is talking about putting a load of these onto state land to ease the crisis, someone’s going to make a fortune.
Pointlessillism on
OPW hits it out of the park once again. Just when you think they can’t possibly top their previous performance, they pull this out of the bag.
craictime on
My bedroom house in maynooth cost 425k start of the year. What is going on
Ok-Dimension-5429 on
The cost of these units wasn’t down to corruption from what I’ve heard. More like standard grade incompetence.
Firstly, a lot of these modular homes were built on the shittest building sites that councils had available around the country. The government said to councils – hand over a site, we need it for this project. The local councils handed over the worst sites they had with drainage issues, on the side of hills, overrun with knotweed, lacking existing sewarage or electrical hookups etc. So the cost of bringing the sites up to speed were FAR higher than a normal site would be, and far higher than the original budgets contained.
Secondly, the idea of modular homes is that you have some experienced factories churning out these units and every unit is identical. Then it’s extremely predictable for the construction workers on site to install them. All units should be identical. The work of building these units was farmed out to MANY different small places around the country who built a few units each. The units were not identical or built to a high standard. Some of the places went bust halfway through the project. This caused a nightmare on site with an explosion of costs as things had to be fixed and reworked.
skidev on
Who runs the OPW
JONFER--- on
Like I mean there are two initial responses.
Firstly and just to be clear I am speaking figuratively not literally heads need to roll regarding the contractors that did the estimates and the officials/bureaucrats who reviewed, monitored and approved the project.
By and large the state cannot handle infrastructure and capital projects.
There is just too much corruption or incompetence or to be honest a bit of both.
fdvfava on
It seems like ‘value for money’ is too much to ask for.
The bare minimum I’m looking for now is that these are used as planned for “beneficiaries of **temporary** protection” and not just re-purposed as very expensive long term social housing.
(We offer 90 days accomm for the updated rules but you have to be legally resident in Ireland long term to get on the housing list, which people here on temp protection are not).
At the very least that might stop the govt rolling over expensive hotel contracts for that purpose.
Popesman on
Absolute joke, where are the planning exempt modular homes for the Irish? I have no issue helping the Ukrainians, but helping them more than we help our own is disgraceful.
Birdinhandandbush on
So these “low cost” modular homes are temporary until the war is over and once the Ukrainian situation is fixed we’ll be able to hand these low cost homes over to Irish people, students, the homeless, right, right??
Long-Confusion-5219 on
Modern Ireland will eat itself. The greed is just endless
PunkDrunk777 on
They walk over this this government and we just shrug and say it can’t be helped
Aranthos-Faroth on
OPW management needs to be completely and utterly gutted. So much mismanagement has been reported lately one can only assume this has been going on for years.
Public audit needs to be done with hyper focus on the public procurement department.
18 Comments
Here’s a summary of the key points from the report:
1. Initial Projected Cost:
Initially estimated at €200,000 per residential unit.
By June 2024, the average projected cost increased to around €436,000, a rise of nearly 120%.
2. Current Projections:
The Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration, and Youth projected total costs of €289.3 million.
This indicates a final estimated average cost per unit of approximately €442,000.
3. Fluctuations in Units:
Originally, 500 modular units were planned.
This increased to 700 units in July 2023, then scaled back to 654 units by July 2024.
4. Project Delays:
The original completion date was February 2023.
The new projected completion date is now April 2025.
5. Pilot Project:
The project began in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine to provide rapid-build modular accommodation.
The Office of Public Works (OPW) developed a proposal for 500 modular units across 20 sites, with a budget of €100 million (€200,000 per unit).
The pilot program was approved by the government in June 2022.
6. Cost Increases:
By January 2023, the cost per unit had risen to €310,000 (a 55% increase).
Costs increased further due to site development issues and abnormal conditions.
In January 2023, the OPW estimated the cost of delivering 700 units at €237 million (€339,000 per unit), 70% higher than the original estimate.
7. Lack of Formal Approval:
Formal approval for revised costs and outputs was not obtained from the government until July 2023, months after the OPW instructed the main contractor to acquire more units.
The Department of Public Expenditure sanctioned the increased expenditure in September 2023.
8. Multiple Revisions:
Between July 2023 and January 2024, the estimated program delivery cost was revised four times.
Amazon has container houses for 25K (plus 5.50 for delivery) and they are in stock……
Corruption here, corruption there, nothing new.
So building modular homes for more the cost of a normal house
Even 200k is a crazy cost for whats basically a chalet.. You would get better log cabins for 30k
Double it is a joke. 450k for a portacabin.
Man this country is a joke
The Mayor of Limerick is talking about putting a load of these onto state land to ease the crisis, someone’s going to make a fortune.
OPW hits it out of the park once again. Just when you think they can’t possibly top their previous performance, they pull this out of the bag.
My bedroom house in maynooth cost 425k start of the year. What is going on
The cost of these units wasn’t down to corruption from what I’ve heard. More like standard grade incompetence.
Firstly, a lot of these modular homes were built on the shittest building sites that councils had available around the country. The government said to councils – hand over a site, we need it for this project. The local councils handed over the worst sites they had with drainage issues, on the side of hills, overrun with knotweed, lacking existing sewarage or electrical hookups etc. So the cost of bringing the sites up to speed were FAR higher than a normal site would be, and far higher than the original budgets contained.
Secondly, the idea of modular homes is that you have some experienced factories churning out these units and every unit is identical. Then it’s extremely predictable for the construction workers on site to install them. All units should be identical. The work of building these units was farmed out to MANY different small places around the country who built a few units each. The units were not identical or built to a high standard. Some of the places went bust halfway through the project. This caused a nightmare on site with an explosion of costs as things had to be fixed and reworked.
Who runs the OPW
Like I mean there are two initial responses.
Firstly and just to be clear I am speaking figuratively not literally heads need to roll regarding the contractors that did the estimates and the officials/bureaucrats who reviewed, monitored and approved the project.
By and large the state cannot handle infrastructure and capital projects.
There is just too much corruption or incompetence or to be honest a bit of both.
It seems like ‘value for money’ is too much to ask for.
The bare minimum I’m looking for now is that these are used as planned for “beneficiaries of **temporary** protection” and not just re-purposed as very expensive long term social housing.
(We offer 90 days accomm for the updated rules but you have to be legally resident in Ireland long term to get on the housing list, which people here on temp protection are not).
At the very least that might stop the govt rolling over expensive hotel contracts for that purpose.
Absolute joke, where are the planning exempt modular homes for the Irish? I have no issue helping the Ukrainians, but helping them more than we help our own is disgraceful.
So these “low cost” modular homes are temporary until the war is over and once the Ukrainian situation is fixed we’ll be able to hand these low cost homes over to Irish people, students, the homeless, right, right??
Modern Ireland will eat itself. The greed is just endless
They walk over this this government and we just shrug and say it can’t be helped
OPW management needs to be completely and utterly gutted. So much mismanagement has been reported lately one can only assume this has been going on for years.
Public audit needs to be done with hyper focus on the public procurement department.