Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Solidarity)

I am just wondering why I stayed until 12.15 a.m. to hear that explanation of what a planning application is. I do understand that the Minister of State has to be careful. I do get that. I thought we might be able to have a general discussion about whether people should pay car parking charges to access community and shopping facilities. What does the Minister of State think? Does he think this is right? Does he think it is good to use the guise that it is all being done for the environment? Does he seriously think that a vulture fund that bought this centre cares about the environment? It is there to make a profit, to get the rents and now, it seems, to generate car parking charges.

With regard to Liffey Valley centre, there is kind of an element here of, "Sure, all the other areas have them". There was a battle in Liffey Valley and a campaign. The workers there, though, are paying €2.50 daily. If they park their car there five days a week, that is €600 a year. They have to earn €800 or €1,000 to have €600 cash in their hands. That is well over a week’s wages for people.

I also want to raise a point about social isolation. Many older people and disabled people use Blanchardstown centre to meet their friends. We are cutting across that. People will now be wary about doing that and we are adding to the epidemic of mental health issues and loneliness that exists. Does the Minister of State know we have these drones? I am sure he does know about it because we have raised this issue here. We will all be sitting at home ordering our coffee by drone rather than actually going out and meeting friends.

We will appeal this decision to An Coimisiún Pleanála but we know it is a David-and-Goliath battle. We are up against a vulture fund with massive resources. There was a traffic survey with 115 pages. How are ordinary residents to compete with this? I am absolutely disgusted with Fingal County Council. It is just ignoring the community and facilitating big corporations. On 6 December, we will march into that town centre. We will disrupt its custom that day to send a message to the company that it will not get away with this lying down and that people have a stake in this town centre. We have nitrates derogations and data centres using our water, so please do not pretend this is about the environment.

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