Mattie McGrath (Tipperary South, Fianna Fail)

I am thankful to the Acting Chairman for allowing me to raise this serious question in the House tonight and I am pleased that the Minister, Deputy Éamon Ó Cuív will be replying. He had occasion to visit this housing estate with me a year ago, I believe, in Ballylynch, Carrick-on-Suir. It is a very old housing estate, more than 30 years in existence, with a large number of houses. The particular scheme as proposed by the Carrick-on-Suir Town Council has been actively supported by the town manager, town clerk and indeed all the local authority members. The present mayor of the town is pushing it as hard as she can.

There was much confusion and disappointment as regards this regeneration proposal. It is only at phase 2 of what will obviously be a long-running regeneration development in different stages. This is a wonderful community of hard working people. The actual phase I am talking about comprises 72 houses, more than 40 of which are in private ownership. I commend the occupants who had the vision and the courage to get their mortgages to buy those houses from the local authority, but herein lies the problem, I believe, although the Minister might say, otherwise.

Several reports were sent to the Department in February this year and there was a request for amendments to the proposal in April. A final report was made to the Department in June and nothing has been heard from it sense. I am in touch on a constant basis with my colleague, the Minister of State, Deputy Mansergh, lobbying the Minister of State, Deputy Michael Finneran and his officials on this issue. Obviously, we need to know what allocation we are going to get, so that we may proceed on that basis. A hard working committee is trying to oversee the regeneration programme on local authority houses, but it will be difficult to do if, for example, houses Nos. 2 and 3 are in private ownership, houses Nos. 4 and 5 are publicly owned and houses Nos. 6 and 7 are again private. Regardless of that, we need to get something moving because people are losing their patience and becoming very frustrated at the length of time it is taking to get this scheme off the ground.

It is a RAPID area, also, and as the Minister knows there is a new playground where he scored a goal on me during his visit. I was not able to do much against the ferocity of that ball. The light was fading, he took a drop kick at the goal and it was in the back of the net before I saw it. Hopefully, he can encourage the Minister of State, Deputy Finneran and his other colleagues to move this situation forward and try to have the funding allocated. As I have said, this will only be the first of a number of phases. As the old adage says, tosach maith leath na hoibre, but the local officials need clarification as regards the status of their proposals. We are told by the Department that it is with the Minister of State, awaiting his signature. We need to have the project signed off, and it would be a wonderful Christmas present, in the event, to allow the people to have a good start in the new year and to sort out their issues as regards the private versus public question. I do not mean this in any adversarial way. It is a question of sorting out the regeneration scheme which is badly needed, so that those families can live in dignity, having put a vote of confidence in their estate. It would be a pity when people are so well motivated as regards buying their homes that anything might stymie such a badly needed and well-designed project, which deserves to go ahead.

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