Mary Fitzpatrick (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Minister of State is welcome and I thank him for coming to the House. The Minister of State obviously had a big day yesterday with the big budget. Well done. The Minister of State helped to secure a record budget for the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage. That is very welcome.

Housing For All is the biggest housing plan in the history of the State. It is set to deliver more than 300,000 homes. I do not believe there is a constituency that needs homes more than Dublin Central. We are coming out of a decade when absolutely no new homes were built. I have brought forward this Commencement matter today because I would like the Minister of State and the Department to provide an update to the House on the delivery of new homes on Dorset Street.

Dorset Street is one of the oldest streets in the city. Everybody knows this. One passes up and down to go to the Phoenix Park, to go to Croke Park, or to go down to Henry Street shopping. The Dorset Street flats at St. Mary's Place is right in the shadow of the Black Church, which is a very famous landmark in the city. The flats have been earmarked for regeneration since 2012. The maths is easy enough to do there - it was 11 years ago. I congratulate the Minister of State and this Government in the progress it has made with this development since the Government was formed, since Housing For All, and since the Part 8 planning permission was granted back in 2022.

The site has the potential to deliver more than 163 homes in a part of the city and the country where they are desperately needed. It also has the potential to not only deliver really high quality inner-city homes but also créche and community facilities. Interestingly, on the site is a very old fire station. It is a beautiful old Victorian redbrick building that Dublin City Council did an amazing job in restoring and conserving, for which I commend the council. It is used as a boxing club. We have Saint Saviour's Boxing Club on site and we have a really great surrounding community but we desperately need homes. We need this development on St. Mary's Place to commence sooner rather than later.

I hope the Minister of State will be able to update the House today on the progress that is being made. When will Dublin City Council break ground on that site? When will we actually start to see construction? In the interim, the site has become such a destination for antisocial behaviour, crime and drug dealing. I thank the city council for responding to my requests and I thank the gardaí for responding to my requests but it had become such a destination for antisocial behaviour the city council had to move to putting up palisade fencing to close off a prime site in the heart of our capital city. That is not good enough but it is really not acceptable that we have this enormous potential to deliver more than one 160 homes and progress is too slow. I hope the Minister of State will give us an update.