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

The People Before Profit local representative in the north inner city, Gillian Brien, who resides in the flats on Constitution Hill, was forced recently to organise a community protest at Dublin City Council offices over rat infestation in the flats and apartments on Constitution Hill, Queen Street, Dorset Street and Upper Dominick Street. A five year old child was bitten by a rat recently. I spoke to Ms Brien this morning and asked her if the protest has had any impact. The council had promised to address the issue but she told me that nothing has happened and that the rat infestation continues. I heard a person who had lived in the tenement houses on Henrietta Street on the radio recently, as part of the centenary celebrations. He was talking about what Dublin was like back then and in terms of the terrible aspects of living in the tenements 100 years ago, the biggest issue was rats. Today, we still have rat infestations and even when the residents of inner city communities protest at Dublin City Council offices, nothing is done. They fear that the failure to address the neglect of their areas is linked to an agenda to drive the local community out and to socially cleanse the inner city. Huge numbers of the Dominick Street and Dorset Street flats are lying empty. Mr. Brendan Kenny from Dublin City Council said recently that there would be no more public housing in the inner city and that all social housing will be in places like Coolock and Ballymun. The fear of the inner city communities is that the neglect is deliberate. They believe their communities are being run down and issues like rat infestation are not being addressed because the agenda is to destroy their communities and to push them out. What is the Taoiseach going to do about that?

See this speech in context