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Busy Day in Dublin

20/01/10

More than 20 éirígí activists attended a protest at the opening of the new Criminal Courts buildings on Park Gate Street in Dublin’s north inner city on Saturday [January 16].

The demonstration was jointly organised by residents of O’Devaney Gardens, Croke Villas, Dominic Street flats and St Michael’s estate. All of these communities face an uncertain future following the collapse of the regeneration schemes for their areas in 2008. The O’Devaney Gardens flats complex is located only a few hundred metres from the massive new court buildings.

The collapsed regeneration projects were the subject of a Public Private Partnership scheme between Dublin City Council and private developer Bernard MacNamara. The PPP collapsed, however, when MacNamara, a former Fianna Fáil councillor, pulled out of the agreement, citing the “adversely changed circumstances” of a collapsing property market. Thus the hopes and dreams of thousands of families were dashed because one man feared for his profit margins.

The estimated cost of the regeneration projects for all of the communities represented at the protest has been estimated at €300 million [£260 million] – the same figure that will be spent over the lifetime of the PPP that delivered the new court buildings. This is an irony that has not been lost on the communities now facing the prospect of living in sub-standard housing for years to come.

Speaking at Saturday’s protest, éirígí activist and Dublin City councillor Louise Minihan said: “It is absolutely disgraceful that the Dublin government has decided to spend €300 million on a new courthouse, while, at the same time, there are thousands of families living in appalling conditions across the Twenty-Six County state. It seems that they value the comfort of judges, solicitors and barristers more than the needs of parents and children.

“What we are seeing here today says a lot about the nature of this state. On one side of the street, the wealthy and powerful are celebrating the opening of a modern, state-of the-art building while, on the other side of the street, is the entrance to O’Devaney Gardens, where a community is expected to live in out-dated and sub-standard housing.

“éirígí is fully supportive of those communities that have been betrayed by the whole MacNamara PPP fiasco. The Dublin government and City Council should immediately allocate the necessary funding for the regeneration projects to take place.”

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