Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)

In 2004, in the biggest demonstration since 1921, 5,000 people marched in Dún Laoghaire to demand that the council abandon proposals to build a ten-storey private apartment block on the site of Dún Laoghaire baths and force a commitment from it to restore the public swimming baths. The demonstrators later forced it to commit to a plan in this regard. After a long delay and endless foot-dragging by the council, last night the Minister's Labour Party and Fine Gael colleagues voted to give €1.5 million to the Dún Laoghaire Harbour Company to place a barge off the east pier in Dún Laoghaire. The county manager, in supporting the proposal for a barge off the east pier, stated it would allow the council to "exit the baths thing". Does the Minister believe it is acceptable for his Labour Party and Fine Gael colleagues and the county manager to show such contempt for the wishes of the public, so strongly expressed over ten years, that they would abandon the plan to have a swimming pool back on the site of Dún Laoghaire baths? Would it not be in the interests of the State's tourism infrastructure and the Government's stated commitment to develop tourism to give the people of Dún Laoghaire what they want, namely, restored Victorian swimming baths on Dún Laoghaire seafront? Acceding to the people's demands would boost tourism in Dún Laoghaire and the wider Dublin area. I ask the Minister to intervene in this regard by getting the council to restate its commitment to provide the swimming baths and by having the Department become directly involved in providing funding therefor.

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