Chris Andrews (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

How is that acceptable in 2025? I find it staggering. There are 600 new bedrooms in the area and not one home. That is insane, in this day and age and given we have a housing crisis. I have said that before. The size of the flats after the retrofitting will not be any bigger. They will still be overcrowded. The problems are going to come back within a year or two. That has happened in other developments where there were deep retrofitting plans.

The trouble is that those homes were built with bricks 90 years ago and the bricks are porous now. The natural sealant has gone so there is constant dampness and mould. It just beggars belief that the Minister would not meet with the residents of Pearse House. I find that almost arrogant. It is arrogant that he would not meet with the residents, knowing that he was going to pull the regeneration proposal. I propose that the Minister would come in here and answer questions, along with the Department of housing. Deputy Buckley proposed that the council would come in and I would add that it should be the council, the Department of housing and the Minister who would come in here and answer the concerns of residents. I find it so disheartening, and I am not a resident. I see the conditions that people are in, yet despite all of that, they have such strength and determination to keep going month after month and year after year.

St. Andrew's Court was mentioned. I was in St. Andrew's Resource Centre about seven or eight years ago and the council said it would provide about 15 flats. It said new homes there would be ready for people to move into in about three years. It is seven or eight years since that meeting and it will be another couple of years. In fairness to Mick Mulhern, the new housing manager in Dublin City Council, he has engaged. The difficulty is he can only do what the Government allows him to do. The Minister has shown that he is arrogant and does not care about the inner city communities whom he has neglected and let down so badly. I propose that we would have the Minister in.