Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

I congratulate my colleague, Deputy Gilmore, on putting forward this badly needed Bill, whose purpose is to enable us to punish builders and developers who leave housing estates unfinished. The Bill will enable residents to sue developers where estates are not completed properly. I represent the constituency of Dublin West and Dublin 15 where unfinished housing estates are a blot on the landscape. This leads to endless distress and frustration for residents.

There are several estates in the area where developers make millions of euro and walk away leaving residents to pick up the pieces after them. This Government does not seem to care about the problem. I can give four examples of this, plucked at random from Dublin 15. I could give the Minister 100 such examples from my files.

Mount Symon in Clonsilla is an estate of expensive family homes where the builder chose to develop the green space in the middle of the estate over an unauthorised dump of building material. This was pointed out repeatedly to the developer and to Fingal County Council but it has taken almost two years to have the space excavated.

Tonnes of building waste have been removed, including a whole abandoned car and other machinery belonging to the developer. The residents were very confident of their allegations about the green space because they took photographs throughout the building process. They were powerless, however, to do anything about it in regard to this developer.

Most of these residents are struggling to pay their mortgages as well as child care. Instead of the State and local authority coming to their aid, they have been left to lobby and campaign for almost two years to reach the point where a large green space is half excavated. The campaign will continue probably for the rest of this year to get the other half excavated and whatever is there taken away.

The Village in Porterstown is a typical Dublin 15 estate whose completion I and other public representatives in the area have pursued for almost seven years. We receive letters telling us that it is about to be taken in charge but the builder has effectively absconded. Some estates in Dublin 15, with expensive homes, have not been taken in charge even after 20 years because the developer did not complete the estate.

It is no accident that Dublin West, and Dublin 15 in particular, was the stamping ground of former Deputy, Liam Lawlor. Consequently, it often seemed as though developers had an open hand to fling up an estate in any condition then walk off leaving the residents to their fate. Prior to the recent local elections, which seemed to spur Fianna Fáil to take some action, I could have invited Deputies to walk through certain estates where the wires were still sticking out of the ground for lamp posts never installed, 20 years after the houses were built.

When one sees the sacrifices people make to purchase a home one wonders why we have a culture, particularly prevalent in Fianna Fáil, in which developers call the shots and residents can be left to their fate. The recent development of affordable housing is welcome, specifically in the Fingal area. When I was leader of the Labour group on Fingal County Council I pushed strongly for this. The affordable housing, however, has often been completed in conjunction with developments by builders working on behalf of the local authority and maybe building the affordable housing off-site from more expensive developments.

Although the local authority arranges these developments, residents have no recourse when they experience serious problems. For example, Hillbrook Woods is a small new estate of affordable houses built on former local authority land, in a deal with a private builder. In this case it appears the gas appliances and central heating installed in the houses are highly unsatisfactory. As a result Bord Gáis has disconnected many gas fires on grounds of danger yet the residents have no recourse.

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