Noel Rock (Dublin North West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State and appreciate his remarks. He referred several times to sustainable communities. He can see from what I said earlier why I feel this scheme as it stands, with the resources as provided, does not constitute a sustainable community whatsoever. It seems that some kind of cordon sanitaire has been set up around Finglas, particularly in the past decade, in respect of developments in health care, education and transport. There is next to no public transport available there.

In the past year when the Taoiseach said he stands up for people who get up early in the morning I believed him. I still believe him and the people of Finglas believe him. However, it goes without saying that the people in Scribblestown will have to get up earlier in the morning in order to access school or to get to a health care centre that is nowhere near there and to get to their places of work because there will be 70 apartments lumped in front of their community with no footpath, no bus stop for 500 m, no link to the new Luas station they are being told about and no school in their catchment area. They were told they got a new school but it is nowhere near them. Only four people enrolled in it because it is not in the right catchment area. That is incredible.

I would appreciate a commitment and a whole of Cabinet, whole of Government approach to these problems which are bubbling. They will get worse. I am not against social housing or developments but it is clear that more is being added to an area that is oversubscribed and under-resourced. We are not getting the resources to match that need. I appreciate that the Minister of State said he will advocate on behalf of the community and work with the city council and the relevant line Ministers to get something moving there because it is sorely needed.

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