The Taoiseach Brian Cowen has launched the Grangegorman Development Project, which proposes to deploy a massive technology campus on the site of the former St Brendan’s Hospital in Dublin that will bring all of the DIT colleges into one place.
The project involves consolidating all of Dublin Institute of Technology – 22,000 students and 2,000 staff – at a single location, including education facilities, research, technology transfer, sports, cultural activities, science park and student accommodation.
According to the Taoiseach, the new development “will transform this part of Dublin into a dynamic centre of academic and educational excellence.
“It will provide local residents with access to new sports and recreational facilities. It will provide enhanced health facilities,” Cowen said.
Vibrant new city quarter
The Grangegorman Development Project is intended to be a high quality area with physical linkages to Smithfield, Phibsborough, Prussia Street and the city centre.
It will include new healthcare facilities for the Health Services Executive (HSE) and a new urban campus for Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT).
The campus will have new arts, cultural, recreational and public spaces to serve the community and the city, including a primary school, public library and children’s play spaces, and complementary mixed-use development.
Speaking at today’s launch Cowen said the development is “good news for everyone who wants to see our national education facilities continue to improve.”
Because DIT caters right across the spectrum from apprenticeships to post-graduate courses, it is also good news for our economy as the percentage of DIT graduates going directly into jobs when they graduate is consistently higher than the national average.
This is a unique project, creating an entirely new health and education campus, bringing together all 39 of DIT’s facilities into one central location.
“It will create significant employment. It is by any standards a huge development, and is anticipated to create 450 full-time construction jobs alone over the period, and over 1,100 more full-time jobs on completion of construction.
“The combination of major new health facilities together with the proven research and development capacity of DIT, this offers significant potential for mutually beneficial co-operation and collaboration. In fact, it is already bearing fruit, with HSE and DIT co-operating on the establishment of a new Environmental Health Sciences Institute here in Grangegorman,” Cowen said.
