Oliver Bond social housing regeneration
Deputy Bacik raised poor health outcomes and long delays for regeneration at Oliver Bond. The Taoiseach promised to engage with Dublin City Council and the Minister, and noted slow regeneration across several Dublin schemes.
I want to raise a housing issue which my Labour Party colleagues, Senator Moynihan and Councillor Darragh Moriarty, have been highlighting locally. I refer to the shocking findings by Trinity College recently that residents of Oliver Bond, the oldest and largest social housing complex in the State, have worse health outcomes than their neighbours in Dublin 8 due to the conditions of social housing there. There is a regeneration project, but people living in Oliver Bond will be waiting ten to 15 years before that will be resolved. One resident said five of them are living in a two-bed flat full of mould. It is very serious. I know the issue was raised yesterday. The Taoiseach told the House then that this is primarily a matter for Dublin City Council, and cited other areas where regeneration has been desperately slow, but he did say that the issue of Oliver Bond has came up at the housing subcommittee and that he will raise the conditions there with Dublin City Council's new CEO. Can the Taoiseach commit to ensuring that the regeneration of Oliver Bond will proceed more swiftly, and that sufficient funding will be provided to empower local authorities to regenerate existing social housing stock in other complexes across the country?
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I will certainly commit to engage with Dublin City Council alongside the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, in good faith on this. Living in Dublin city, as the Deputy does, I see how slow regeneration has been, whether it is in Dolphin, Donore Road, Emmet Road,-----
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-----Pearse Street or Oliver Bond. It is a good example of why the State does not always do things better. Sometimes it takes longer and costs more. If it was done by the private sector, these would all have been built a long time ago. I know it is not as simple as that. I will commit, in good faith, to engage with the new city council CEO on it.