Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It is a pity I did not have a copy his statement. He referred to a figure of €200 million. Considering there are 146,000 social housing units, that amounts to only €1,300 per unit. The Government will not get much bang for that buck. Considering the position of a lot of people who are living in flat complexes in Dublin city or other houses that are badly built or not fit for purpose, there is a lot more.

The Minister of State finished by referring to regeneration projects and mentioned St. Michael's Estate. It took more than 20 years to get to where we are, with a totally derelict site. No building work has started other than a senior citizens' block which is to the side and is not part of the main complex. The same is true of St. Teresa's Gardens. The main part is still there but there is no community there because the communities were taken out. I am on the regeneration board of Dolphin House. How many master plans do they have to go through before any further work will happen there? There is none. There is no plan. They are being told, after 20 years, that they need to wait another ten years. That means another ten years of living in conditions that are not fit for purpose. It means people living in dampness and their children suffering the consequences of that dampness. It means that people's doors are ill fitting because successive Governments have screwed the council in this city and elsewhere by not providing them with proper maintenance budgets. They try to do as much as they can with the small budgets they have but they cannot fix all the problems because they do not have the money. Every year, people on the list for maintenance are lucky if they get it done in the first couple of months. After that, the budget is gone. It is only once in a while that can be stretched.

These are people we are talking about. They are paying rent and deserve good-quality homes. It is not that they are living off the backs of everybody else. These are workers, human beings who do not deserve to have chest infections every week or to have to bring their children to the children's hospital every second week. They are people who deserve to have draught-free homes. I could go on and on. It is not good enough. It has not been good enough and there has never been a proper approach to it by Governments.

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