Chris Andrews (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I wish the Minister the very best in his new position. It is important for everybody in the country that he is successful. I wish him the best. When it comes to housing, it is hard to know where to start. The list is extremely long. I will start with the regeneration of flat complexes in the city of Dublin. In my own constituency of Dublin Bay South, Pearse House is a large flat complex that was in the process of being regenerated. Stage 1 had been passed. They were looking for stage 2 planning but the Department has put a hold on that and said it is not going to go ahead. This, of course, is really devastating for residents. I was down there yesterday meeting with residents again. The regeneration is not just about Pearse House; it is about all the flat complexes throughout the inner city. The lack of maintenance within the flat complexes is equally shocking and slow. Within the last ten days to two weeks, I have been contacted by residents whose flats have been flooded with raw sewage coming up through the toilet and flooding the entire flats. The flats are then unlivable and they have to move their families to the homes of friends and neighbours. This is happening on an ongoing basis, however. Pearse House, like many of the Simms buildings, was built in the 1930s. They are very small flats.They need to be regenerated. The Department is saying it needs additionality on the site. The reality is that it will not get additionality with buildings on a small footprint that are the size of Pearse House or any of the other flat complexes. We will not be able to create modern, livable homes for people at these locations if we are going to look to maintain the flats at the small size that they currently are. The Department needs to knock two flats into one in many cases in order to make them bigger and more livable. It is not going to be possible to get additionality with the 1930s Herbert Simms buildings. Flexibility needs to be built into the scheme. Verschoyle Court, which is not too far from there, it is a very large site with plenty of room. There is a very small number of homes in the senior citizens complex on that site. The Department could get additionality on a site adjacent to Pearse House flats. The work is already at a snail’s pace.

There is a need for regeneration at Oliver Bond flats, at Mercier House, at Beech Hill in Dublin 4 - people do not seem to recognise that there are issues in Dublin 4 as well - and at Rathmines Avenue in Dublin 6. The conditions in which people are living are horrendous and completely unacceptable. It would be worth the Minister’s while to visit flat complexes such as Pearse House or Glovers Court. As I have said previously, there are more drug dealers than residents in Glovers Court. Residents are waiting for regeneration but it is moving at a snail's pace. People are putting their lives on hold. One resident said to me that they are not living, they are surviving. All they are doing is surviving the conditions imposed on them by Dublin City Council and the Government. In fairness to the council, it is committed to the regeneration and is looking to come up with solutions but the Department is not flexible around this.

The standard of maintenance in the flat complexes is abysmal. There is raw sewage and there are rats running around the flats. The kids are having to step over them. I am not exaggerating when I say this. There are electrical faults. All the flats across the city of Dublin have to be regenerated. Unfortunately, this Government has neglected inner-city communities for so long. The people living in flat complexes like Ross Road, Nicholas Street and Bishop Street, and in our inner-city communities, have been forgotten and neglected for decades. There needs to be a step change in the urgency and investment into regeneration projects in the inner city. The paperwork and the processes need to be shortened so that each of the four phases of redevelopment and regeneration projects is much quicker.

Residents right across the city feel that before the election, the Government was telling people it was committed to the regeneration of flat complexes in the inner city and to supporting communities, but as soon as the election was over, the Pearse House regeneration project was dropped and residents have again been dropped from the plans to regenerate the flats on Pearse Street.

The Irish Glass Bottle site is a big site that will house between 7,000 and 10,000 people. The Luas was supposed to go there. The previous Government knocked it back in order that the Luas will not reach the Irish Glass Bottle site for another ten years. The site will be almost finished at that stage. Thousands of people will be living on that site. It is important that any homes there are affordable and are made available in the first phases of the development. There is concern that the affordable homes will not be in the first phases of the development of the Irish Glass Bottle site. This would make it increasingly difficult to deliver affordable homes at a later date. I will make a final point. Anybody in Dublin seeking a meeting with a housing adviser in Dublin City Council has to wait seven or eight weeks. They could be homeless at that stage. It is completely unacceptable and needs to be addressed as a matter of urgency.