Thomas Gould (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I am looking at the Minister of State's script. In the last paragraph on the first page it is stated that between 2013 and 2020, Cork City Council received €21 million in respect of retrofitting works for 7,000 units. Did the council change light bulbs or what? A figure of €21 million to retrofit 7,000 units does not add up at all. I ask that be clarified. Cork City Council has 10,500 social housing units and the Minister of State indicated that 7,000 of these were retrofitted over a seven-year period. That means 1,000 were done a year. That does not make sense at all. That needs to be clarified. The Minister of State is right that €7 million was spent on 156 apartments. The properties of residents in areas like Wolfe Tone Street and Allen Square were done, but the residents had to campaign and blockade roads because of the condition of their houses. The works were a tremendous success. I will bring the Minister of State down to Allen Square and the residents will tell him how the works changed their lives and reduced their bills by half but all the communities around them in Baker's Road, Churchfield and Mary Aikenhead Place are living in the cold.

See this speech in context