Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I accept the Department is not in the business of supplying housing but it still has a legal and moral obligation to the remaining residents in the buildings in question. I do not want to be making a big deal over the individual complaint I have had from an elderly woman but I will correspond with the Minister of State on it.

I find it an incredible approach for the Department to engage in a tactic which is nothing short of managing the decline of these buildings. I had a discussion on this issue with the former Minister, Alan Shatter, four years ago. Then, Deputy Clare Daly and I went through several of the houses in question to see the condition in which they were. Those old redbrick houses were well built. I would rather be fixing them than many of the houses built since then. Although the Department is not in the business of supplying housing, given that the housing crisis reflects on every aspect of the Government, the Department should be obliged to make good use of these buildings. The idea that we do not want anybody living in the Curragh Camp any more is incredible. One would swear the Russians were going to invade us and that we need a military camp with no people living in it. The Minister of State can take my word for it that no one is going to invade us. No one would be bothered.

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