Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

I suggest that the Minister ask the parents in the area whether they think things are moving at a snail's pace or not. I do not think the Minister would be too surprised by the reply he would get. The delays in this case are unforgivable. The family centre was shut last year at the end of August. That should have been the signal for urgency in organising a replacement. On 6 February, the company appointed to organise replacement services - not Northside Community Enterprise - wrote to the Minister and other Ministers outlining the need for €366,000 in fresh funding to do necessary works in advance of a reopening. Last month, three months after that, on 13 May the Minister told the Irish Examiner that he was hard at work trying to source alternative funds. Now, we are five weeks on from that and there does not appear to be anything new here. Northside Community Enterprise reckons that there is somewhere between two and four months' work to be done in that building. The chance of it reopening for September is gone but we want to see something happening there in a serious way this year. I will be coming back to the Minister on this before the summer recess. It is disappointing and it is happening at a snail's pace.

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