Dessie Ellis (Dublin North West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

What I find very frustrating in all of this is I have been raising this with Fingal County Council for years and we have had study after study. What we are looking at is a new study to see what is suitable. The Minister of State mentioned Dunsink tip head, but that is 200 acres on the opposite side of the road to where we are speaking about, which is 300 acres. This is bigger than the Mulhuddart site. This is a massive amount of land and it is a greenfield area. It is an area where we would not run into the same problems with lot of residents in terms of trying to get planning. For many years we have ignored it. We also have the potential of putting in a lot of projects there, including in the Dunsink tip head area. We have a horse and pony project. We have also spoken about having a track for bikes on it. A raft of amenities can be put in the general area. The fact this land is available is constantly ignored. It was acquired a number of years ago through a compulsory purchase order as a result of people settling on the land. It is there and ready for people to take advantage of it. We should be saying the infrastructure fund is there and asking the council what it can do and whether it can deliver on this. Can we speed-up the process and look at these lands? In one fell swoop we could clear an awful lot of the problems in terms of housing. The delivery of housing on that site alone would be massive. We would have, hopefully, social and affordable housing and affordable rents on the site because it is ideal. They are prime lands with amenities left, right and centre around the area. There is also access to a lot of facilities. It makes it an ideal site.

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