David Norris (Independent) | Oireachtas source

In the past week or two during a convalescence I have taken to walking around my area, which is the Georgian core of Dublin. What I have seen has absolutely horrified me. I have seen an area of dereliction and waste. If one goes along towards the basin of North Frederick Street and Blessington Street one can see this and one can see it in the houses behind as well. In Nelson Street two houses are burnt out. There are houses in multiple occupation with one family per room, many of whom are new Irish or immigrants. God help them in these circumstances. Many of these buildings are owned, I understand, by former gardaí and so on. They are rack-renting. There are numerous bells on the doors and those involved do not put one damn penny back into the refurbishment of these areas.
Off Mountjoy Square in some of the streets there is dereliction as well with mounds of black bags bursting with rubbish. The whole area is suffering from degradation and blight. There is multiple occupancy and curtains are drawn across on a string. There are lines of knickers hanging out. The whole place is extremely distressed. There are two houses on Nelson Street in particular. I am unsure whether they were the victims of arson but they were destroyed by fire and they have been simply left there. No. 30 North Frederick Street has been derelict with the windows out for years.
I went down and looked at O'Connell Street, the principal street in our capital city. I looked at the building Dublin County Council put up. It is an ignorant appalling building of mass concrete. On the other side of the road was the old Findlater shop. I remember a most wonderfully dignified shop. There are two enormous spaces left by the collapse of a development. We have knickers shops and an amusement arcade. What kind of a street is this for a capital city of a European country in the 21st century? Will the Government consider doing what was done in the 18th century in similar circumstances, namely, establish an authority? It was the Wide Streets Commission in the 18th century. It put manners on the people who owned and manipulated property in the centre of the city. We hear a lot about Georgian Dublin but let us do something for it.
Can we have another debate on the Middle East? We have had a series of significant debates and I believe they have had some small impact on our foreign policy. I received a communication from a Quaker woman who was a student of mine in Trinity many years ago. Along with an ecumenical accompaniment group she has been visiting the Bedouin village of Nu'eimeh in the Jordan Valley. She met the mayor there and he asked her to transfer this information to the Irish Parliament. The people there are being forcibly transferred with two other Bedouin communities from the contentious E-1 area on the Jerusalem border. They are being transferred into a new city to make way for an illegal development of settlers. It is appalling. This is ethnic cleansing to add to the other international war crimes committed by the Israelis, such as the declaration of a blitzkriegagainst the people of Gaza as a result of the tragic and regrettable murder of three Israeli youths.

That is collective punishment, as admitted by the Israelis. When will we do something about it?