Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The bad news the Minister has just given will be of no comfort to people in housing estates throughout the country. The Minister should ask the liquidator to publish a list, or make it available to us, of all the estates that are potentially affected by this matter.

These planning permission conditions were granted by the local authority, which is an arm of the State. One of the conditions was that a bond should be in place. By its actions, however, the central Government has decided not to honour planning permission conditions. By removing the bond, the Government is saying that they can go to the bottom of the unsecured creditors' list when everything is transferred to NAMA.

Before the IRBC loan book is transferred to NAMA, the Minister should make provision for these bonds to be honoured. He showed a way of dealing with it himself when he said that approximately €1 billion had been saved as a result of re-financing of the promissory note. Part of that sum should be used for these purposes. I do not particularly mind whether it comes from the special liquidator, NAMA or the Department of Finance. It is not fair that people in housing estates who are paying the local property tax should be singled out to carry an additional burden by not having footpaths or public lighting installed in such estates. It is wrong for an arm of the State to undermine local authorities by taking action which will prevent councils from carrying out work in estates, which is a normal condition for a local authority.

The Minister spent months drafting this legislation and he knew it was a logical follow-on but that was not made clear to people at the time. It is only emerging now. The choice for local authorities will be simple - the work will not be done unless somebody pays for it. I am asking the Minister to come up with the balance required to complete these estates.

See this speech in context