Paul Coghlan (Fine Gael)

I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Seán Power, to the House and thank him for being present to reply to this matter. This issue arises from an initiative of Killarney Town Council, which I am more than happy to support, which believes 30 acres of the HSE lands in question should be used to accommodate social housing together with facilities for a number of voluntary social care and sporting organisations.

The availability and price of land in the Killarney area makes it extremely difficult to provide for all of those who are currently on the council's housing list. These lands are ideally placed for such housing and the council has already indicated to the HSE its willingness to acquire as much of this land as possible. Perhaps the Minister of State is in a position to indicate the timetable of the phased closure of St Finan's. People in Killarney and Kerry are strongly of the view that these lands should remain in public ownership for the common good because they were handed over at the stroke of a pen from Kerry County Council to the former health board when it was statutorily set up.

The Government has paid much lip service to the securing of lands in State ownership which are surplus to requirements for much needed social and affordable housing. This is a laudable aim but we need to do more to live up to this objective. There is an ideal opportunity to put in place a suitable, substantial housing programme to facilitate Killarney's urgent housing needs now and into the future.

The Minister will be aware of the St. Finan's community action group which has been in touch with her. It comprises a number of very worthy and meritorious organisations such as MS South Kerry, the Wheelchair Association, the Association for the Blind and Kerry Care, the Order of Malta ambulance corps and the two sporting organisations, Killarney Rugby Club and Killarney Judo Club. They have also put forward a number of useful suggestions which have a lot of merit and would require very little space to house their organisations and allow them to carry out their work in suitable premises. The Order of Malta simply needs sufficient space to house three ambulances and to provide training facilities for its own members.

A good and useful proposal has been made to the effect that doctors and chemists will require a health care centre to be on-site. There is no reason this meritorious proposal would not be viable with the town council and St Finan's community action group proposals that a sufficient extra portion of these lands be retained for the public good, especially the provision of social and affordable housing.