Joe Costello (Dublin Central, Labour)

With my two colleagues, I wish to raise this important issue and seek intervention by the Minister of State and the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government.

It has come as a huge shock to the people of the north inner city that McNamara Construction and Castlethorn Construction have suddenly decided to withdraw from their public private partnership agreements with Dublin City Council. The hundreds of tenants of O'Devaney Gardens, Infirmary Road, Seán MacDermott Street and Dominick Street, not to mention St. Michael's estate on the south side where the project has been promised for a even longer period, are shell-shocked on hearing that their long-promised homes and facilities are now less likely to materialise. The Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government must outline his plans to assist these devastated local communities which are dependent on the successful delivery of the PPP model. He must outline the implications for Dublin and for other cities and towns in which the same PPP model is being promoted. He must also state the level of binding legal commitment in the agreements reached between the city council and the private developer and whether the city council or the State has any legal recourse. The Minister must state whether this devastating news has implications for the successful delivery of other projects within his brief which depend on the PPP model. We have heard that a number of these projects are also in jeopardy.

The retiring Comptroller and Auditor General, Mr. Purcell, speaking last Sunday night on "The Week in Politics", urged the Government to be cautious in its use of the PPP model. The fact that so many projects in Dublin should have been agreed at the same time with McNamara Construction and should collapse at the same time needs to be explained. My main concern is for the hundreds of tenants of the four project areas in my constituency who feel absolutely betrayed. They and their representatives have patiently worked to plan the regeneration projects hand-in-hand with the developers and the local authority over recent years. The local authority must organise meetings with them to reassure them that the social, affordable and community housing aspects of the projects will be retained and that these homes will be constructed. There is an immediate need for the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government to make that commitment.

I welcome the new Minister of State with responsibility for housing, Deputy Michael Finneran, and congratulate him on his appointment. I want to be the first to invite the Minister of State to come to Dublin Central, attend our meetings, visit the estates and meet the residents. I would like the Minister of State to come with the ability to make a financial commitment that the social, affordable and community development aspects of the projects, which have been in the pipeline for so many years, will be delivered in the not too distant future. It has long been promised that at last this public private model would be successful. I ask the Minister to make such a commitment.

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