Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 10 June 2014

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Environment, Culture and the Gaeltacht

General Scheme of Dublin Docklands Development Authority (Dissolution) Bill 2014: Discussion

3:55 pm

Photo of Kevin HumphreysKevin Humphreys (Dublin South East, Labour)
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There is a short-term need for investment in the local communities so perhaps the liability would be better placed somewhere else rather than with the DDDA. There was a change in the structures of the authority and, especially in latter years, the lack of delivery on the social regeneration element meant there is still a need to identify a pot of money to be invested in the local communities both on the north and south sides. With the strategic development zone, SDZ, the levies are purely for infrastructural purposes, so there is a need to provide social elements for investment. It would not be right, in framing this Bill, if an effort was not made to identify money that could be spent building social stock in the area, whether it is education, housing, playing fields, community centres, etc., in the docklands. I use the term "docklands" rather than SDZ, as it is site-specific.

If we examine purely the dissolution aspect, we will be left with affluence next door to poverty as there will be no social plan to level the playing field. There will be high-end apartments costing €500,000 or €750,000 next to local authority housing with very little investment. The strength of the docklands until now was in the attempts to break down those barriers, increase educational attainment and create an equal playing field for the local and indigenous community to have the opportunity to get the new jobs in the area. This Bill would be weakened if it did not take on a social regard in that element. It is very easy to look at this Bill and think we are dissolving the DDDA but if we do not make some sort of allowance for social capital or investment, the process will fail. That is my policy position as against the purely technical process of dissolving the DDDA, although both of these must be considered at the same time.