Multimillionaire developer Bernard McNamara has given €2.5 million to Trinity College Dublin (TCD) to establish a new chair in construction innovation.

Mr McNamara, whose interests include stakes in Superquinn and the Shelbourne Hotel, has also declared plans for an "affordable" housing scheme on property he owns in Dublin.

The new professorship in the School of Engineering at TCD is named in memory of his late father Michael McNamara, founder of the eponymous building group.

"New innovative methods of construction for the future vitally need to be explored and developed to underpin national competitiveness, and I hope that this will further that process," Mr McNamara said.

At a Green Party meeting in Dublin on Tuesday evening, he said he wanted sites he owns at Priorstown House lands at Scribblestown, Castleknock, and Oldfield, Kilmashogue, to be rezoned for affordable housing. This would require a variation or material contravention of the development plans in these areas.

He told the meeting that up to 1,000 units could be built on each site within 18 months - 700 affordable units and 300 at market rates, as in the affordable housing partnership scheme. The affordable units would be priced at around €190,000 for one-bed apartments and around €320,000 for three-bed homes.

Such a scheme would be open to people who meet the criteria for affordable housing, eg single applicants with an income of up to €55,000.

About 100 units each would be made available to public service employees, nurses, civil servants, teachers and gardaí, with the rest going to private sector workers.

In Mr McNamara's plan, the homeowner would take 30 per cent of any uplift in the second-hand sale value of the home and the developer would take 70 per cent.

The developer's share of the uplift would go to an independent affordable housing foundation set up by Mr McNamara.

The foundation would have the right to match the market value of the property when the original buyer puts it up for sale.

The foundation then purchases the property for market price, with the 70 per cent of the clawback going to the foundation.

The foundation then makes the unit available to another approved affordable housing purchaser at the acquisition price, less the clawback figure.

"We believe we can create a stock of revolving affordable housing by using this methodology," Mr McNamara said.