Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independents 4 Change) | Oireachtas source

I raise the legacy of strategic housing developments, SHDs. These were a policy of the previous Fine Gael-led Government, which was backed by Fianna Fáil. SHDs bypassed local area development plans and were fast-tracked by the Government to facilitate the vulture and cuckoo funds, something we have seen over the last couple of weeks.

I want to bring a bit of reality into this. Drimnagh in my constituency has a very strong community, which has campaigned relentlessly on behalf of residents seeking sports facilities, extra medical services, community hubs and everything that voluntary groups do right throughout the city. In many ways, the neglect over time by local authorities after the crash and everything else is less obvious due to the tremendous work done by these volunteers.

With the policies of SHDs and rezoning brownfield sites to residential zone 1 sites, this community is facing a build in progress on the Dulux site with 265 apartments in eight-storey blocks, all built to rent and all with one or two bedrooms. On the Heidelberg-Miller site on the Davitt Road, there will be 188 apartments in a nine-storey block, again built to rent with one or two bedrooms. There is no dual aspect for the properties and little communal space or storage. There is a pre-consultation process ongoing for Brickfield Drive, which will have 282 apartments in four-storey to ten-storey blocks, built for purchase, with 10% of the properties under Part V and 90% to be sold to a cuckoo fund or investment. There is also the G4S site on Herberton Road, with 170 apartments, and that is a pre-consultation phase so we do not know exactly what is going on there.

With those SHDs, we are talking about 2,000 extra people in the community so what is the Government going to do about the legacy of these projects in the community? Will it fund local authorities so they in turn can fund communities to get in more medical and educational services or more green spaces and community hubs? These communities will need those because of this extra development in the area.

These communities may see an extra 5,000 people in the area with other developments, which is the size of a small town. What analysis has been made and how will these communities be supported in building sustainable neighbourhoods?

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