Developer Johnny Ronan has reiterated his belief that the only way out of Dublin’s housing crisis is to build upward.

Ronan told the Financial Times that one solution to remedy the shortage of housing is to push ahead with higher-rise, higher-density development, with Dublin Port one area that could potentially unlock land.

The owner of Ronan Group Real Estate recently lost a planning appeal to build a 10-storey apartment block in central Dublin.

“If they keep going on like that, the housing crisis will never be resolved,” Ronan said as he advocated for “higher density with some taller buildings” away from the centre.

“With reasonable density, you can still deliver a huge amount of housing,” he said.

Ronan has agreed to a multimillion-euro deal to press ahead with a new deep-water port at Bremore, north of Dublin.

If Dublin Port were relocated away from the city, it would free up around 260 hectares of land for housing, but the port has rejected any move as unnecessary and claimed building homes on the land is unfeasible.

“That’s a decision for the government. We’re not trying to get our hands on the land,” Ronan told the Financial Times, although he described potentially repurposing the Dublin Port site as “transformational”.

Ronan owns Ronan Group Real Estate with his three children and has a cumulative project pipeline in planning or pre-planning of up to 2.5M SF of offices and 5,900 residential units, representing a total gross development value of some €5.2B.

The company owns 11 prime buildings, predominantly offices, around Dublin worth about €250M, including the Citi building, of which 250K SF is still available.

“We are talking to four serious big occupiers, including a major American outfit that has some presence [in Ireland],” Ronan said.

RG Real Estate had bought Citi’s old premises and is in talks to redevelop them, he added.