Dáil debates
Thursday, 9 February 2023
Saincheisteanna Tráthúla - Topical Issue Debate
Technological Universities
7:55 pm
Chris Andrews (Dublin Bay South, Sinn Fein)
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I congratulate the Minister of State and wish her well in her new role. It is a really interesting one and I am sure she will be excellent in it.
Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Deputy.
Chris Andrews (Dublin Bay South, Sinn Fein)
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The Government is happy to increase the numbers of people living in inner-city communities. For decades, Governments have been happy to increase the numbers of homeless services in inner-city communities; the number of homeless hostels; and the numbers of Housing First allocations in the flat complexes. The Government is happy to increase the number of asylum seekers in the inner city. All this time, the Government neglected flats and the inner city. The Government has no interest in increasing the facilities and services available to residents living in the flats and living in the inner city. Neglect of the inner-city communities will be the legacy of this Government, along with neglect of those living in the flat complexes. There needs to be investment in the flats and in the services and facilities in the inner city. The residents in the inner city protesting on Aungier Street are not extreme right-wing or fanatics. They are ordinary working families who have been let down by successive Governments. They have gone above and beyond to welcome people into the community, people whom other communities did not want. They took in the homelessness services which other communities would not take and took in drug rehabilitation services which other communities would not take. While there is a diverse community in Dublin 2 and 8, the Government continues to increase the number of people in the inner city without increasing facilities and services.
The Dublin Institute of Technology, DIT, campus on Aungier Street represents a huge opportunity to reverse the neglect by the Government. It offers an opportunity for the State to make some small amends for decades of neglect. The DIT building is a huge site and a huge asset for the State. It offers a real opportunity to deliver some essential services and facilities for residents living in the Dublin 2 and 8 area. The nearby DIT building on Kevin Street was sold off to a private developer some years ago. It will add nothing to the local community in terms of the facilities and services that are needed for a functioning community. This development will just add more pressure to services and facilities. The DIT site in Aungier Street cannot just be sold off and more residents added to the community, which is already bursting at the seems. The Government needs to ensure that additional services and facilities are put in place. The neglect of the flats needs to stop. One positive measure that would help that would be that the community would have a publicly accessible leisure and sports centre on the site of the DIT in Aungier Street. That would be a great and necessary asset for a community that is at capacity, for everyone, especially a community that has been neglected for years.
8:05 pm
Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Deputy for raising the matter of giving consideration to keeping the Aungier Street campus in public ownership and the lack of public facilities in the area. On the question of the Aungier Street campus, the property is currently fully in the ownership of Technological University, TU, Dublin. Under the terms of the Grangegorman Development Agency Act 2005, both TU Dublin and the Grangegorman Development Agency, GDA, are together responsible for the disposal of assets, including the Aungier Street property. The funding realised by the disposal of these assets will then be reinvested in the Grangegorman campus. The property was listed for disposal on the State property register in September 2019 with no interest being indicated by the State sector in retaining the property in public ownership. On that basis, the GDA and TU Dublin have incorporated the disposal of the property into their funding plans for relocation to Grangegorman. Both the GDA and TU Dublin are mandated by the 2005 Act to obtain the best value from any property disposal so as to maximise the resources available for the Grangegorman development and to reduce the need for direct Exchequer funding. Dublin City Council recently debated the rezoning of Aungier Street as part of the preparation and approval of its development plan but the council decided to maintain the zoning as is.
The west quad is the new home on the Grangegorman site for the relocated business school and is being funded through the sale of TU Dublin's property on Aungier Street. In 2020, that sale was put on hold due to market instability caused by Covid-19 and is expected to resume again in 2023. The west quad will be home to approximately 4,000 students from the TU Dublin College of Business currently in Aungier Street, and the School of Languages and Law. It will also host the university conferring hall which will have a capacity of approximately 800 people.
I appreciate that the development of Grangegorman is of strategic interest to the Deputy but also that it is on the other side of the river and outside the Deputy's immediate constituency. Deputy Andrews's responsibility is to his own area - I do not mean that in any critical way - and my responsibility is to the people of Dún Laoghaire, not of Dublin 8 either. I totally respect and understand that. In terms of the question around serviced properties and the other facilities for the area, it is important to highlight the range of education services being provided by the Department of Education. Sandymount Educate Together Secondary School was established in 2016 and will ultimately cater for 1,000 pupils. Similarly, Harold's Cross Educate Together Secondary School will cater for 1,000 pupils. While I know these schools are not in the immediate area to which Deputy Andrews refers, they are proximate to it. I know both of those schools well. At primary level, Harold's Cross Educate Together National School, Gaelscoil Eoin, Harcourt Terrace Educate Together National School and Shellybanks Educate Together National School are all providing additional school places in the area.
I would raise one note of concern with the Deputy. It is very important that communities that are taking in people from a whole range of different places are supported, particularly through the €450 million community fund announced by the Minister for Social Protection. That money is available to communities for better facilities and I would encourage the Deputy to look at every opportunity to avail of some of that funding for his own constituency. However, I would have a concern around the language used and references to Dublin city taking in more and more asylum seekers. Everywhere is taking in more asylum seekers, right across every constituency. There have been tensions in Aungier Street, with very many good people coming out to balance and moderate that but there have also been some difficulties there. We genuinely do not want to do anything that adds to or inflames those difficulties. It is important that every community is supported. Every community is taking in people right across the country and will have to continue to do so.
Chris Andrews (Dublin Bay South, Sinn Fein)
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I thank the Minister of State for her response. The DIT campus on Aungier Street is a huge facility and is going to be redeveloped. Ultimately, it will probably be a build-to-rent building like the one at the DIT site on Kevin Street. That building will be 14 storeys high and will have a huge impact on the area. The construction is already having a huge impact on local residents on Kevin Street and Bishop Street. It is not going to add anything to the area. It is going to bring in a huge number of people.
As I said, the area lacks sports facilities for local sports and football clubs. I know the Minister of State is associated with Granada Football Club, which is a fantastic club with great facilities and that is great to see. I know the club could always do with more facilities but the reality is that for those around Kevin Street there is a tiny pitch - it is hardly the size of the floor space in this room - on Digges Street. Kids training and playing for any of the local clubs, including the Iveagh Trust or the Iveagh Celtic club and Aungier Street have to travel to Crumlin to play on a full sized astro turf pitch or even to train on a decent sized astro turf or grass pitch. They have to travel quite a significant distance and it is very hard to get young children to travel such distances just to train on a Tuesday and Thursday evening. The Iveagh Celtic club and the Aungier Street club do fantastic work in the local community but they do not have the facilities.
I met a group of older people yesterday who were saying that there are no facilities in the area. We do not even have a swimming pool. Lots of areas have pools and sports facilities which are so important for a functioning, healthy community but they are all lacking in the area. There is no reason sports facilities cannot be made available on the Aungier Street campus. I am not suggesting that we take over the entire DIT campus but that we develop a sports and leisure centre on the site. That is very doable and realistic but there must be a commitment and an acknowledgement that communities in the inner city have been neglected for years. We must make amends for that and that is what this Government needs to do.
Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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I agree with the Deputy in every respect. I would highlight the great work done by the north-east inner-city working group which attempted to do much of what the Deputy advocates on the north side of the city. I agree that historically, the Liberties area has not had the same focus and is particularly deprived of playing facilities. I have done a lot of work with Mr. Eddie D'Arcy of the Solas Project, based in the Liberties, and am well aware of the challenges with regard to access to playing space. It is one of the most acute challenges.
The Deputy is quite right to highlight Granada Football Club. It is a wonderful club with 1,300 players but it struggles for playing space. It is the single biggest challenge in many respects for clubs right across my constituency, where there is far more green space than there is in Deputy Andrews's local area. There are similar housing pressures in both constituencies but there is more green space in mine. It is so important to develop that in the inner city and to protect it where it exists in the inner city. At the same time, we have to work out the opportunities for future development. The population is going to continue to grow but we have a finite amount of space. We are not going to start building football pitches in the middle of roads so we are going to have to figure something different out. I am being imaginative here now, but would the Deputy support a range of 13- to 15-storey buildings in the inner city, each with a swimming pool available to the community and a football pitch on the roof? How are we going to reimagine space in the inner city, in a mid-size European capital city with a growing population? We have the same amount of space. We cannot turn people away, and we cannot say "No" to development and population growth. We want people to be here. We want them to work but we also want them to have a good lifestyle as well. We are going to have to look at the models in other cities, where there are much higher-density buildings but much better facilities within those buildings too. As I look around the world, in different places, I see that sort of development. I see 13- and 14-storey buildings with exceptionally good facilities which are made available to the occupants and the people living in the surrounding area. I do not see that replicated here and I wonder what the vision will be in Deputy Andrews's constituency, as much as in my constituency, for accommodating that additional growth and the services that people need.