€50m allocated for 100 new homes in Limerick

The Government will this year pump €50m into the Limerick regeneration programme with 100 houses to be built, Jan O’Sullivan, the housing minister, said yesterday.

Last month, Phil Hogan, the environment minister, attacked the programme when the Irish Examiner revealed not a single new house had been built since the initiative was launched four years ago.

Despite €116m being spent by the two regeneration agencies, to date the programme has focused on the demolition of 700 abandoned and vandalised houses in Moyross, Southill, St Mary’s Park and Ballinacurra Weston.

It has also been spent on finding alternative homes in other parts of the city and suburbs for more than 1,000 people who have opted to move out of the four estates.

Yesterday, Ms O’Sullivan told a meeting in Southill that work on the building of 100 new houses would commence this year.

She said she expected that the Government would allocate funding in the order of €50m.

To streamline the regeneration work, she said the two existing regeneration agencies would be amalgamated into the one office.

“This new entity will give a new impetus to regeneration and build on the foundations laid so far by the agencies, retain regeneration as a separate entity with its own dedicated staff and annual capital budgets and continue to support the community and voluntary sectors in delivering the regeneration social interventions,” she said.

Work has commenced on 33 new housing units in Moyross which are due to be completed by next summer and yesterday Ms O’Sullivan said €4.2m is being made available to kick-start a new scheme for elderly people at Vizas’s Court.

“It is critical that the regeneration programme in 2012 moves on from the demolition to construction, from relocation to rebuilding communities,” said Ms O’Sullivan.