Housing bodies/affordable housing
Tina Marie O’Neill, Donal Buckley, Killian Woods, Catherine Sanz and Emmet Ryan profile the key 100 individuals in the property industry
Zoe Moorhouse
Director of new business development, Circle
Zoe Moorhouse has been director of new business development at Circle Voluntary Housing Association (VHA) since 2021. Prior to joining Circle, she spent over 13 years working in the UK affordable housing sector, including at Peabody, one of London’s oldest and largest housing associations.
Her expertise includes managing the acquisition, planning, procurement and construction of high-density new-build and refurbishment developments, covering mixed-tenure and mixed-use schemes. In her role at Circle VHA, she is responsible for expanding the organisation’s housing portfolio and driving community development initiatives.
Last October, Moorhouse and her team received the Social Housing Development of the Year award at the National Property Awards, recognising their contributions to quality housing solutions.
ER
Moorhouse and her team received the Social Housing Development of the Year award at the National Property Awards
Brian O’Gorman
Chief executive, ClUid Housing
Across various roles at Clúid Housing, Brian O’Gorman has seen the housing charity morph from a small property manager into one of the most significant landlords in the state.
In place as chief executive since 2000, O’Gorman has overseen a lot of this growth and change at the approved housing body.
The agency now has a €2.8 billion portfolio of 13,000 homes that provide housing to 32,000 people. Last year, it added 1,000 new properties to its assets under management.
Under his leadership, Clúid Housing has also struck some interesting arrangements in recent years. Most notably, it secured €54 million in finance from Legal & General, the UK pension fund, to bankroll some of its projects – an arrangement that showed large institutional firms are interested in backing affordable housing schemes, and could be an avenue to boost international private finance into the Irish residential sector.
KW
Parag Joglekar
Director of investment and development, Respond
Parag Joglekar is an architect by trade, but rose beyond that brief many years ago to lead the development wing of Respond, the approved housing body (AHB).
For the past two years, he has been working in a similar, but expanded, role as director of investment and development at the housing charity.
Joglekar is now presiding over one of the largest building programmes, in terms of both public and private sectors, in the state.
His team is overseeing the development of €1.5 billion worth of assets, which will deliver thousands of new social housing and cost rental homes for Respond’s portfolio.
Throughout last year, developers and contractors working for Respond were building 4,000 new homes across the country at any given time, which when delivered, will boost its residential portfolio size by almost 50 per cent.
In his new, more comprehensive brief, Joglekar is also leading Respond’s business development and managing the charity’s strategic partnerships with the private sector that is on site delivering the new homes for the AHB.
KW
Sean O’Connor
Chief executive, Tuath Housing
Regarded as one of the straight-talkers in the approved housing body sector, Sean O’Connor stands out from the pack.
The chief executive of Tuath Housing is not shy of criticising the “naked greed” of some private rental market (PRS) sector operators and defending the AHB sector from those who criticise it for purchasing large amounts of private sector stock.
O’Connor, a trained chartered surveyor, joined Tuath Housing in 2007 and has overseen the body growing into the biggest AHB in the country.
His organisation now manages a portfolio of 15,000 homes, with plans under way to build a further 5,000 homes before 2027.
Under his leadership, Tuath Housing has made some canny moves in the apartment development sector in recent years in the absence of institutional funds, who withdrew from Ireland following the rises in interest rates.
Tuath Housing has struck significant development agreements to purchase new-build apartments and also buy close to 200 homes from Ires Reit, the state’s largest private landlord.
KW
Martin Loughran
Chief development and commercial officer, Tuath Housing
Martin Loughran has risen gradually through the ranks at Tuath Housing over the past 14 years to lead on some of the approved housing body’s most innovative projects.
As director of new business and development, he oversaw a project with Harcourt Developments to convert an old office block at Park West Plaza in Dublin 12 into 86 apartments.
At a similar project in Cork, his team worked with MMD Construction to convert Springville House, another old commercial block, into 31 new homes.
Loughran joined Tuath Housing in 2011 as a property development assistant. He was promoted to chief development and commercial officer late last year.
His experience in the social housing sector expands beyond his employment at Tuath Housing. Until October 2024, he was a board member of the influential group, the Irish Council for Social Housing, on which he sat for three years.
KW
Richard O’Boyle
Executive director of First Step Homes and Trinity Investment Management
First Step Homes, a low-profile private housing investor, has made a significant splash in the Irish social housing sector and property market in the past decade.
Richard O’Boyle, who has two decades of experience in the property investment sector and overseen £2 billion worth of UK real estate transactions in his career, was one of the individuals behind the firm’s low-key success.
These property plays involved the acquisition of close to 1,000 mostly second-hand homes in Ireland. The company’s approach involved the acquisition, renovation and then leasing of the units to the state for social housing.
O’Boyle, who also works for Trinity Investment Management, a London-based real estate firm, has scaled back the operation in recent years, selling a portfolio of about 300 homes to other investment funds.
He told the Irish Times in February the firm has observed an opportunity to scale back up its activities if the new government proceeds with more investor-friendly housing policies.
KW
Kieron Brennan
Chief executive, Co-operative Housing Ireland
Established in 1973, Co-operative Housing Ireland (CHI) is a not-for-profit organisation and provider of affordable housing nationwide and is one of the country’s ‘Big Six’ affordable housing bodies.
Kieron Brennan has been CHI’s chief executive since 2014 and has significantly expanded the housing body’s provision of social-rented homes, supporting the delivery of 8,200 homes nationwide through home-ownership, shared ownership and social rented co-operatives. Recent housing projects include developments in Riverside, Castleisland, Co Kerry; Kilruddery Glen, Bray, Co Wicklow; Moínear, Ennis, Co Clare; Baunacloka Heights, Limerick; and St Canice’s Hall, Finglas, Co Dublin.
The CHI has a staff of about 100 and manages almost 5,500 homes across Ireland.
Prior to joining CHI, Brennan led the Irish League of Credit Unions and held roles at Pobal and Triodos Bank, focusing on community development and ethical banking.
TM
Sharon Cosgrove
Chief executive, Oaklee Housing
One of the ‘Big Six’ AHBs, Oaklee has seen its housing stock almost quadruple under the guidance of Sharon Cosgrove since she became the housing body’s chief executive in 2016. Now, Oaklee has about 2,300 social and affordable units on its books, which are spread across 19 local authority areas.
Last year Cosgrove and her team launched one of the largest cost rental developments in the country at Adamstown, Co Dublin, a year after Oaklee transitioned to an independent group structure under her leadership.
Before joining Oaklee, Cosgrove was the chief executive at the Asthma Society of Ireland and Sonas Housing and ran her own consultancy firm. She also served as chair at the Housing Alliance.
Bringing energy and inspiration to a largely challenging environment, Cosgrove was described by one colleague as “a great boss and lovely to work with”.
TM
Aidan Culhane
Chief executive, Iveagh Trust
Aidan Culhane has been chief executive of the Iveagh Trust for the past six years. The brainchild of philanthropist Sir Edward Cecil Guinness, the trust was founded in 1890 and is one of Ireland’s oldest and most prominent affordable housing providers.
Originally established to provide quality homes for the working poor in the Liberties, it provides about 1,860 homes around Dublin today.
As well as the Victorian red-brick buildings of Bull Alley, beside St Patrick’s Cathedral, it manages a number of more contemporary properties at Mount Anthony, off the Rathmines Road, the Applewood Estate in Swords and some 70 apartments at Annaghmore Court in Ballyfermot.
It is also opening 128 apartments for letting in the first phase of social housing accommodation at Stonemount in Ballyfermot this spring. Stonemount forms part of a development of over 800 units that is being built by Dwyer Nolan Developments Ltd at the site.
Culhane was the former director of housing at Urbeo Residential, and before that a consultant at WK Nowlan Real Estate Advisors after serving as councillor at Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown for 12 years.
TM