Dáil debates

Thursday, 14 October 2021

Saincheisteanna Tráthúla - Topical Issue Debate

Housing Schemes

4:35 pm

Photo of Chris AndrewsChris Andrews (Dublin Bay South, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

In budget 2022, the Government has effectively signalled that it has given up on inner city flat complexes. The Government has started waving the white flag. It feels to residents and me that the neglect will continue. The Government has turned its back on Dubliners living in flat complexes. I have consistently highlighted the shocking conditions that Dublin City Council residents have to live in due to that neglect. For me and the communities that I represent, the €23 million cut to State regeneration funding, despite the unacceptable conditions of older social housing and flat complexes, is devastating. Residents of flat complexes have been told by this Government that it is giving up on residents and that they can continue to live in the rat infestation, the flooding, dampness and decay. I am the first to hold Dublin City Council to account. However, the council cannot do the necessary work if it is not given the resources. The Government is using the council as a mudguard. This budget and the cuts to regeneration allocation highlight where responsibility lies. Residents know that it lies squarely on the lap of the Government. This budget shines a light on that.

I recently got a list of 23 flat complexes that Dublin City Council planned to regenerate. With a cut to regeneration funding, the reality is that most people reading this list will not be alive by the time the council gets halfway down it. Sinn Féin sees the dire circumstances that residents in flat complexes live in. We allocated increased funding for flat regeneration in our alternative budget. We did this because we know that no Government could or should stand over the conditions that residents are expected to live in. I have said many times here that Dublin City Council should set up a pilot scheme to tackle the extreme rat infestation in the flats. More intense levels of baiting and tackling nests of rats are urgently needed. The council also needs to carry out a repair programme immediately to fix the drains. The drains are a source of rats. They harbour rats. They are old drains and they need to be fixed urgently.

In 2017, a ruling was made by the European Committee of Social Rights that Ireland had breached Article 16 of the revised European Social Charter. The committee went on to say that the Irish State had failed to ensure the right to housing of an adequate standard for a not insignificant number of families. Four years on from this ruling, nothing has changed for the people living and paying rent in these State-owned homes and flats. Across the inner city, many flats are in a shocking condition. Tenants describe living there as a constant battle. Every day, they face a constant battle against the conditions inflicted on them by Dublin City Council, this Government and neglect.

Why has the State not acted to amend its failings? Is it content to have its citizens living in such dire conditions?

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