Tony Gregory (Dublin Central, Independent)

I thank the Labour Party Whip for the opportunity to speak briefly in support of this important motion. I am an elected Member of Dáil Éireann for the constituency in which four of the failed public private partnerships are located. In a previous Dáil I was elected to represent the constituency in which the fifth one, St. Michael's Estate, is located. I have a particular responsibility to voice the disappointment, frustration and understandable anger of the local people. The residents have suffered Dickensian and unacceptable living conditions for far too long in flats complexes such as O'Devaney Gardens, Lower Dominick Street and St. Michael's Estate. I want to refer to the residents of the surrounding communities, who have been impacted by the negative spin-off blight, the result of the failure of the Government to redevelop and regenerate these areas that have cried out for redevelopment for decades.

The essential element in tonight's motion must be that this Government cannot force the residents of the flats complexes to continue to live in their present conditions, which in many instances are deteriorating by the day and which nobody in this House would tolerate for a single night. The Government must make the necessary funding available directly to the local authority to build new homes for the existing residents of O'Devaney Gardens, Lower Dominick Street and St. Michael's Estate, in line with the already agreed plans. Beginning construction of this one aspect of the PPPs must be an immediate first step. The only source of funding is central Government. These plans were hammered out over several years involving the residents of these areas, who believed, as they were told, that this was a definite and genuine commitment by Government, stated and restated before elections and since.

There is a moral responsibility on Government to honour those commitments now. This issue alone will tell us whether this Government cares a damn about the most vulnerable. Any attempt to put this on the long finger would be a scandal, just as it would compound the existing scandal that these housing conditions exist at all in this day and age in the centre of Dublin, our capital city, after more than a decade of the affluence of the Celtic tiger. This Government should not, as it appears to be doing, attempt to use any threat of recession as an excuse not to make the required funding available, nor should it be allowed to pass the buck to the local authority, as I have already heard here tonight. If anybody needs to tighten their belts and pay up for the threatened recession it should and must be the developers who have made billions of euro over the last ten or 15 years from property speculation. It must not be the disadvantaged families of city centre flats complexes who have been left behind by successive Governments. This is a very real test case for this Government. The action it will or will not take will make clear whether it cares for the most vulnerable in our society, that well-worn phrase used so often in recent times.

I want to mention a similar flats complex, Liberty House in Dublin 1, on which the Minister's Department, in Dáil replies to me, has been passing the buck to Dublin City Council and forcing families to live in appalling conditions in E and F blocks and other families from the now demolished D block to live in temporary homes. I ask the Minister to take responsibility and to direct officials from his Department to meet next week with officials from Dublin City Council along with local residents and public representatives and expedite the redevelopment of the already demolished D block now.

For my part, if the Government acts on its responsibility and makes the funding directly available to start the construction of the essential new homes now, I will support it on this issue. I say that, however, in the sad belief and knowledge that this Government will not act in the interests of social justice, yet again, on this occasion.

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