Tommy Broughan (Dublin North East, Labour)

The news last week that the developers Stanley Holdings are not proceeding with the proposed new town square at Belmayne-Clare Hall is a devastating blow to the constituents I represent in the north fringe region of Dublin North-East. The proposed location of this new town square linking with the long boulevard stretching eastwards to Clongriffin town centre was to be a centrepiece of the whole north fringe new urban project. The extraordinary collapse of the deal for the 9.3 hectare site for the proposed town square is typical of the poor planning and management of the new north fringe and the continuing serious deficit in social, economic, public transport, security and other essential infrastructure of this development.

Although the huge north fringe new urban quarter stretching from Clonshaugh through Belcamp, Belmayne, Clongriffin, Donaghmede, Baldoyle and Portmarnock to the sea was to encompass 25,000 or more housing units and massive ancillary commercial development, the district is not a statutory strategic development zone, unlike Adamstown, Hansfield, Balgaddy and other much smaller new towns.

A core problem of this vast project is that it is developer-led with the two local authorities concerned, Dublin City Council and Fingal County Council, and all other agencies scrambling to keep up and insisting on the delivery of very belated public services. The area is split geographically between the administrative districts of Dublin City Council and Fingal County Council and, regrettably, there has been generally poor and only belated co-operation between the two local authorities in ensuring the delivery of key social infrastructure for this new city.

On my own proposal nearly seven years ago, the informal stakeholder body called the North Fringe Forum was established and its quarterly meetings have been helpful in chasing developers and agencies to provide essential services. Yet new residents and constituents are still waiting over five years for our new DART station at Clongriffin, our new primary health care centre, a Garda station, and a wide range of shopping, service and leisure facilities which were to be located on sites such as the new Belmayne town square.

The astonishing news that Stanley Holdings, the primary developers of Belmayne, are not now proceeding with the purchase and development of the 9.3 hectare site is another disgraceful example of the absence of integrated planning in the north fringe of Dublin city. I am informed by the Dublin City Council development manager, Mr. Declan Wallace, that the price of the site rose to €60 million under an amended section 183 provision agreed by the city council with the developer in August 2006. North central area councillors of Dublin City Council were informed in July this year that a non-refundable €5 million option clause on the site was being considered by Stanley Holdings but it appears now that the company can meet neither the full price of €60 million for the site nor even the possible down payment of €5 million.

Stanley Holdings have subsequently made an extraordinary and ludicrous proposal that they would spend €2 million in drawing up plans for a possible approved planning permission should the market take an upturn.

The Belmayne town square debacle is another shocking milestone in planning failures in the north fringe of Dublin city. The credit crunch is becoming an empty excuse for many of those failures, including the derelict and partly built district at St. Samson's, which is just north of Belmayne. The main victims of this appalling failure by a developer to discharge his responsibilities are our new residents and constituents in Belmayne, Clongriffin and adjoining areas, as even a cursory glance at the residents' message board, www.balgriffin.com, will show.

I do not have time to refer to the ongoing pyrites infill problem with which many hundreds of householders in the adjoining areas of Clongriffin and the coast are still wrestling. The appalling situation faced by young householders with defective infill problems is one of the greatest scandals in recent Irish history. The Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy Gormley, has refused my continuing pleas to take responsibility for and action on this issue. That exacerbates the planning debacle which is the main subject of my contribution. I predict that the fallout from the pyrites catastrophe, in terms of the State's finances, will be greater than the cost to the State of the banking disaster we discussed earlier.

Even at this late stage I ask the Minister of State to ask the Minister, Deputy Gormley, to take a strong line and end the planning failures of the north fringe. This is by far the biggest urban development project in the history of the State. The Acting Chairman's own constituency was developed in a similarly haphazard way 30 years ago and he has spent his entire career trying to remedy the deficiencies of that time. I am in the middle of a similar debacle on the north side. Will the Minister, even at this late stage, call in the county manager, Mr. David O'Connor, the city manager, Mr. John Tierney, and all the relevant stakeholders and proclaim the north fringe as a strategic development zone, including, if necessary, bringing legislation before this House to take charge of the completion of the north fringe and the provision of all the key, and still missing, infrastructure? In particular, the Minister of State must ensure that development of one of the two main town squares at Belmayne proceeds. People should not have to look at hoardings and a derelict site and it is completely unacceptable that those who paid €400,000 or €500,000 for their homes are being obliged to do so.

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