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

Infrastructure is necessary for the proper functioning of our society but the Taoiseach and Cabinet committee D have failed in this elementary task. They have failed on housing, the children's hospital, broadband and the provision of schools. As a follow-up to the question I posed yesterday on Dún Laoghaire Educate Together, what does the Taoiseach have to say about the fact that more than €100 million is being spent on prefabricated classrooms? In many cases, students and teachers are in such classrooms for years and years. Specifically with regard to Dún Laoghaire Educate Together, the Taoiseach said that a site would be identified by the end of quarter 3. When that site is identified, will money be made available immediately so that the school community is not waiting, like many others, for a decade or more for the physical buildings to be placed on site in order to get them out of the completely unsuitable and inappropriate prefabs that they and many others have to put up with?

On the question of social housing, I will put a very particular point to the Taoiseach. His objective is to achieve social mix and deliver social housing through 10% of private developments being reserved for such under Part V. In light of this, does he think it is acceptable that developers are building that 10%, the social housing element, of their developments to lower specifications than those of the other apartments in the same development? This is what we discovered happening in a major development in Dún Laoghaire called Cualanor. The buildings look the very same on the outside but, when one goes inside, one finds that the specifications are dramatically worse. Soundproofing, the quality of finish, the quality of the kitchens, and the layout of the buildings are to a lower specification. So much for social mix and integration. Does the Taoiseach approve of that? If he does not, what is he going to do about it?

See this speech in context