Rebecca Moynihan (Labour) | Oireachtas source

The issue of maintenance arrears could fall into the same category as looking at the national differential rent scheme that has been promised. I am a little concerned about decoupling maintenance from social regeneration because often a lack of maintenance within our public housing building has forced us into positions that we would not want to be in, in terms of regeneration. I am thinking of the example of O'Devaney Gardens where we had to make choices and decisions because we simply did not have the money. It was a policy outcome from the Department that meant we had to privatise that land to develop it. I would be reluctant be decouple maintenance and social regeneration entirely because one leads into the other. The lack of long-term maintenance in local authority projects has often led to us selling them off. I agree that the approval process is different but I would like to see social regeneration and maintenance put in together because one has led to the other and I do not want to see them entirely decoupled.