Arthur Morgan (Louth, Sinn Fein)

The failure of the Government and many local authorities to act on this issue is inextricably connected with the detrimental and cosy relationship between the Government parties and developers that has resulted in an unwillingness to take on the greedy and unscrupulous developers.

Builders and developers regularly fail to complete work in common areas within housing developments, as has been evidenced by everyone who has spoken in this debate. The main problems centre on footpaths and road surfacing, road markings, drainage, landscaping and building rubble being left all over sites when the builders leave. This is a particular problem affecting the commuter belt and the counties surrounding Dublin, such as Louth and Meath, where new housing estates are being hastily built with little care for the quality of life of those who will end up living in these estates.

I have ample experience of this problem in my own constituency in Louth. A case currently being pursued by one of the Sinn Féin councillors in County Louth is that of Inis Linn in Dromiskin, a 50 house scheme. Footpaths and proper road structure have not been provided and residents are left to traverse a surface not unlike what one would expect if one were traversing a section of the moon.

There is also the case of a 35 house scheme at Collon in County Louth where no final surface was put on the road. The most alarming feature of that scheme was the storm drainage system. A system of sorts was put in place but it went nowhere — there was no provision for the water to escape. Lovely pipes went around the houses in the scheme but they came to a stop and, consequentially, the entire scheme floods every time there is any significant amount of rain. In that case the developer left a bond of €26,000 with the local authority but it cost €33,000 to complete the project. In fairness to Louth County Council, it moved quickly, provided the additional funding and organised the completion of the project because the builder had gone out of business.

Councillor, soon to be Deputy, Joe Reilly, brought a number of particularly bad cases in County Meath to my attention. Having fought this cause at local authority level for some time, he asked me to raise the issue in the Dáil.

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