Paul Murphy: City West waited 20 years - where's the centre?

Thanks a lot, Ciann Comhairle. City West has been waiting for more than 20 years for a community centre. It was written into the local area plan in 2012. It was promised again when that plan was extended. It was made a binding condition of planning permission in 2018. Since then, nearly 4,000 homes have been built, hundreds more now planned at Beoher Boy, still no community centre. The council's capital plan shows no grant from the Minister's Department. Is that correct? Why not? And will the Minister engage with the council to make sure that the centre does open next year as promised? Go raibh maith agat, Ciann Comhairle, agus go raibh maith agat díon teachta. We want to acknowledge the importance of having appropriate facilities in communities such as City West. Community centres are vital for bringing communities together and providing an outlet for services for social, cultural and community activities. Community Centre Investment Fund, or CCIF, was introduced to provide high-quality community facilities available to all groups in all areas. Earlier this year, Minister Butterman and I launched the fourth iteration of the Community Centre Investment Funding. The round of the scheme is providing funding of up to €100,000 for the refurbishment of the existing facilities. This is additional, Deputy, to the £80 million that's already been approved since 2022 for over 1,600 community centre enhancement projects. Under the 2023 round of CCIF, over €30 million was approved for the construction of 12 new-build community facilities. These are substantial construction projects with the scheme providing funding of up to €6 million. I hope to be in a position to announce funding for new-build community centres in 2027. I've been informed that planning permission has been approved to construct a community centre in Creche in the Cúil Dúin Avenue area of City West. I understand from South Dublin County Council that the project will commence later this year, that the local authority are engaging with the developer. My department has not received any application to date to support this project and I'm certainly happy to work with the Deputy, with South Dublin County Council and the community in City West to ensure this facility delivers for the local community. My department has funded, I think, eight different projects in South Dublin through this Community Centre Investment Fund. Your local authority has a very good record of delivering for us. We look forward to working with them on any potential application. Thank you, Minister. Debra Murphy. If you look up developer-led planning in a dictionary, I'm sure you would find a picture of City West. It's quite incredible, where it's one of the fastest growing communities in all of Ireland, almost 4,000 homes built in a decade, more than 2,000 of them just in the last three years. And what came with the houses? No community centre, no public crash places, families on waiting lists for a long time across the area, no sports pitches, the couple of parks and playgrounds are working overtime for tens of thousands of people, and residents say that they feel forgotten and they're absolutely right. Because this is, it's just classic developer-led planning. Throw up the homes but don't give the facilities to allow people to integrate and to build a community, as opposed to just providing homes. And this has just been a saga with this community centre. In 2018 it was made a condition of planning permission. The developer built the homes, but then the community centre was no longer developed. So the latest stages, yes, something is now happening, but the Minister's attention will assist. That's why we, and Minister Humphreys at the time, brought in the community centre investment, that's why she expanded it to new builds, which we will launch again in 2027. To date, over €988,000 has been awarded to 23 community centres. City West sounds like a place that needs a community centre. We have track record of investing, for instance, Newcastle in Galway is an urban centre where we've worked with the City Council in Galway, and most importantly the local community, and I had the pleasure of turning a sod on that development two weeks ago, and that will be ready to occupy in late 2027. So as I said, certainly happy to keep you informed. We will have funding in 2027 for a call. The call will be more than likely around this time next year. Happy to work with you, and happy to put you in touch maybe with other communities around where we've brought the new build to the stage they're at at the moment. As I said, we have 12 projects that are nearly finalised, total new builds on top of all their furnishings. Yeah, thanks. I mean I just make the point that this isn't only an issue for South Dublin County Council. Obviously I accept the point that an application needs to be made for funding to be granted, but the responsibility for this, like the reason that City West has been developed in the way that it has been, with homes but not adequate facilities, is because of the fast-track strategic housing development process. The local area plan was just ignored, which had all these kind of requirements, and they just went straight to strategic housing development, and got permission for huge developments, and then not putting in the facilities. Sometimes they were promised, like community centres, like creches were often promised, often part of planning permission, and then not promised, and not ultimately delivered. The council had previously said that the community centre would be delivered in June of this year. Obviously we're now in the middle of July, ground hasn't even been broken. The main thing I would appeal is to the Minister not to wash his hands of this, to engage with the council, to track delivery, and to make sure that this centre opens next year. Certainly, Deputy, I can assure you I won't be washing my hands of it, but equally the council have to show interest and intent. I'm not going to spoon-feed the council. We have councils, and in fairness South Dublin County Council are very proactive in relation to their refurbishment scheme of centres. When we launch the scheme next year, we will launch it in partnership, as we have done with local authorities around the country. It's a very substantial investment programme on the part of the department, but it does exactly this for those communities you've highlighted, in terms of providing centres and providing places for communities to gather. We will, as I said, I would hope around this time in 2027 to issue the call. We will be preparing that call, engaging with local authorities through the CCMA and other groups in the meantime. I would absolutely make a call on South Dublin County Council to step up and make that kind of investment in the City West community.