Mr. Seanie Lambe:

I thank the Acting Chairman for the opportunity to address the committee. We have made a submission in writing. In the short time available to me, I will address a couple of specific items. These concern the two trust companies that were set up by the Docklands Development Authority with the local community. One was the Docklands Housing Trust and the other was the Docklands Community Trust. Both are charitable trusts and were negotiated with the Revenue Commissioners and the Companies Registration Office.

The purpose of the trusts was established through discussions and investigations by the docklands community of other areas. We negotiated the 20% social housing clause in the docklands master plan, and we were the first in the country to have such a clause. As the Acting Chairman is probably aware, it became public policy under the Planning and Development Act 2000, which was subsequently amended in 2002. The reason we did this is that we learned from colleagues in the London Docklands Development Corporation in the East End that one of the major problems they identified was that young people in that area could no longer afford to live where they were born and reared. What we wanted to do was protect the future of the indigenous local community. That is why we pursued the 20% social housing idea. We assumed, perhaps naïvely, that the units would be put into the control of Dublin City Council. They were but then the city council handed them over to social housing agencies. I would like to make it clear that we do not have a problem with social housing agencies, as such, but believe they have policies that differ from those of the council. Certainly, their vision is different from that of the community representatives in the DDDA. For instance, some agencies sell the properties to their tenants. Our review of this was that if the properties were sold to the tenants, within one generation the 20% would be back on the market, resulting in no long-term gain. To prevent this, we asked that the properties be put into a housing trust. That was agreed although many of the houses had already been distributed. It was eventually agreed, in the early part of this century, to set up a trust and put the next set of properties to become available into it. The trust owns 72 properties. Our only purpose in owning them is to ensure they remain available to the people on the waiting list of the city council, and that the people who live in them will receive an appropriate service from the managing agent, in this case the housing association.

The second trust, the Docklands Community Trust, was an attempt to perpetuate the benefits and gains that had been negotiated throughout the various master plans after the end of the master plan. The model also came from London, in this case from the Royal Docks Trust. When the London Docklands Development Corporation came to an end, the remaining money was put into a trust fund for the local community. We had no guarantee that any such money would be left in our circumstances so we wanted to build up a fund to allow us to continue the work that had been funded previously by the authority. We had a target of between €5 million and €8 million for the fund but, by the time the economy collapsed and the authority went into serious decline, we had got €1.32 million.

Both trusts have a similar design, with three nominees from the DDDA, three from the community sector associated with the authority and one from the city council. We used the interest on the €1.32 million to support educational initiatives to help young people entering third level courses or post-leaving certificate courses. We provide the service at no cost because we do so by distributing €20,000 each to the local employment services in Pearse Street and Amiens Street.

Therefore, there is no cost involved to the taxpayer in distributing the money. As regards the model in the memorandum and articles of association, the kind of skills we sought for people on the trust were educational or community experience, finance and investment, accounting, business and management, law, governance, social and economic development, or heritage and culture. We have been careful about the construction of the boards of trusts. We are happy with how they are working, notwithstanding the fact that by definition their impact is limited.

We fear that under the proposed dissolution Bill the handing over of control of those trusts - and the nominating rights of the Docklands Authority on those trusts - to the city council effectively means that the city council will be deciding on four of the seven members of the board. One may think that will make no difference, but the reality is that if the city council controls the Docklands Housing Trust there will be great pressure on the board to pursue city council policy, which is to sell the units to the people living in them. That would defeat the purpose of the 20% social housing provision and the initial establishment of the trust.

Exactly the same arrangement applies on the community trust. We are faced with that threat. There are possibilities within the memorandum and articles of both trusts to make different arrangements, but as we see under heading 8 in section 2 of the Bill, all rights and responsibilities would be handed over to the city council. That is a matter of serious concern for us.

We have raised these issues with the existing executive board and we hope to have further discussions with them. If we are to take what is currently in the Bill heads, however, the situation would then be completely untenable.