Michael Finneran (Roscommon-South Leitrim, Fianna Fail)

In our programme of housing support in 2008, we supported some 19,000 households, a substantial figure. While there is trimming back of €290 million in the housing capital budget for this year, that figure would meet between 400 and 500 houses. I am providing for 2,000 extra houses under the leasing programme. There will be a net gain of 1,500 or 1,600 houses under the social housing programme.

Regarding standards, there are laws and local authorities are obliged to deal with inspections. I understand an increase in inspections has taken place.

Deputy Flanagan referred to Ballymun, which is an example of success. I supported that success by allocating €45 million to Ballymun for 2009. An enormous amount of development has taken place, six of the landmark towers have been demolished and 2,800 of the existing flats are demolished or are under contract to be demolished. Some 1,400 new homes are there, along with a new street, two hotels and a whole neighbourhood of facilities and amenities. The new IKEA store will open in July with 500 new jobs. Ballymun is a success story to date although it may have taken longer than expected and gone over budget. We can aspire to finish it to a high standard.

The PPP model has been debated in this House. One of the first matters on my desk after being appointed Minister of State last May was that PPP projects were under scrutiny because developers were not in a position to go ahead with them due to the downturn in their finances and the economy. A review has taken place and Dublin City Council has come forward with new proposals for St. Michael's Estate. My Department is examining these proposals at this time. I am hopeful progress will be made in the coming year.

I have also set aside moneys for works to be carried out, namely, the relocation of people from O'Devaney Gardens flats. Dublin City Council is working on this and examining other areas of development in those complexes. I do not want those areas to go back to monotenure developments. This is a difficulty for the city council because these monotenure developments caused social problems. A mix of public and private developments is important. Private development is not coming forward but hopefully that will change. I do not want to allow monotenure development to take place. I want a mix of sustainable communities so that we do not generate the social problems we are dealing with in other regeneration areas.

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