Tommy Broughan (Dublin North East, Labour)

Early last Saturday I flew across the Dublin north fringe region, returning from Galway with Aer Arann. From the air, the starkness of the construction closedown in the area is immediately visible. Large cleared areas of fields are marked out with roads and boundary fences but all activity has ceased effectively since early last autumn.

Vital public transport, shopping, health, security and community services remain to be provided for the major districts of the north fringe, such as The Coast, Stapolin, Clongriffin, Beaupark and Belmayne. The long promised new DART station for Baldoyle-Clongriffin has not been delivered and new residents now hope the latest target date of October 2009 will prove to be accurate. In the south of Belmayne, construction seems to have stopped completely over a vast area of apartments. From Clare Hall Avenue, the vast new estate looks uncared for and unfinished.

In the same district four months ago, local residents received the shocking news that the proposed new town square at Belmayne-Clare Hall was not going to proceed as planned. The key Belmayne developers, Stanley Holdings, pulled out of the purchase and development of the 9.3 hectare town square site, agreed under a section 183 agreement with Dublin City Council in August 2006. The Belmayne town square was to be a centrepiece of the north fringe development, linked by a new long urban boulevard to Clongriffin and Stapolin town centre in the east.

The astonishing debacle of the Belmayne town centre is typical of the poor planning and management of the new north fringe by Dublin City Council and Fingal County Council. More than seven years ago, I proposed the local informal stakeholders' body, the North Fringe Forum, which tries to invigilate the vast new north fringe development. The forum is concerned with a development of potentially 25,000 to 30,000 housing units and ancillary commercial development which is easily the largest such development in the history of the State.

However, unlike much smaller areas like Adamstown, Mansfield and Balgaddy, the north fringe is not a strategic development zone. I call on the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy John Gormley, to give the north fringe strategic development zone status without further delay. Only by placing the north fringe on a statutory SDZ basis and insisting that the Dublin City and Fingal county managers establish a clear five to seven-year scoping and planning timetable can the urgent needs of existing new residents be met and a full sustainable development plan activated for this crucially important new urban quarter of Dublin City and Fingal County.

The Commercial Court in Clonskeagh is currently hearing an action by Menolly Homes, Mansfield Developments and associated companies against three companies in the Lagan Group, including Irish Asphalt, the owners of the Bay Lane quarry in Blanchardstown, Dublin 15. The matter is now sub judice and the judgment will have immense consequences for the young constituents I represent in several areas of the north fringe. The issue at stake relates to allegations of serious pyrite contamination of infill used in housing construction in Clongriffin, The Coast, Drynam Hall, and in several other areas of north and west Dublin and east Leinster.

I am disappointed the Minister, Deputy Gormley, is not present, although I acknowledge the good attributes of the Minister of State, Deputy Moloney. For almost two years I have pleaded with the Minister to establish a task force on pyrite contamination of buildings erected during the Celtic tiger period, similar to action taken by the government of Québec province in Canada. I have asked him perhaps 20 times in this House to close Bay Lane quarry immediately and to carry out a full traceability audit of the two million tonnes of infill material taken from it. We have traced only 5% of it. I have asked him repeatedly to invigilate all the other quarries in Leinster for possible pyrite contamination. Why has the Minister and Leader of the Green Party stood helplessly on the sidelines while young householders, whose homes are literally coming apart, are left to fend for themselves? During this time companies such as Killoe Developments refused to take calls for months on end.

Surely this is another great betrayal by the Green Party and a dereliction of duty by the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government. It is now abundantly clear that the building regulations were greatly, and deliberately, weakened by this 12-year-old Government. We have a so-called self-regulatory system. In autumn 2007, the Minister, Deputy Gormley, tried to close the stable door when the horse was clearly gone, with his letter to local authorities on regulatory responsibility. The key responsibility is now his alone. I appeal to him, for the umpteenth time, to establish an SDZ for the north fringe and a task force on pyrites.

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