‘People power at its shining best’

PRESIDENT Mary McAleese honoured Dublin community spirit at the weekend when she visited Fatima Mansions, a one-time social blackspot housing estate.

The south inner-city flats complex - once a byword in Dublin for social deprivation - is undergoing a massive transformation, the first phase of which is now completed.

Surveying the 110 new houses built under the five- year regeneration programme, Ms McAleese congratulated the local people on their determination and achievement.

“Your faith, resilience and commitment are as incredible as they are inspirational, for few communities experienced such overwhelming problems as you did.

“So the true foundations of this redevelopment are not the cement, the brick and the mortar; they are your hearts, your souls, your huge spirit,” she said.

The original Fatima Mansions flats - being demolished and replaced by superior housing - were built in the late 1940s and 1950s. By the 1970s and 80s the flats were in steep social decline, driven by rising unemployment and a worsening drugs problem.

The President reflected on what had been achieved in recent years. “Look at what you have overcome to arrive at this day; look at all the problems, the doubts, the mountains climbed to make the dream you had into a lived reality.

“This is people power at its shining best. A community knocked down by so many adversities has fought back, taken control of its landscape, its future and the future of its children.

“And in doing so you have said loud and clear that tomorrow’s Ireland is going to be a place where people care about one another, where children grow up in safe neighbourhoods, where their talents blossom naturally and where poverty and disadvantage are under constant attack until they disappear from our history books for good.”

When Phase Two of the redevelopment is finished there will be homes, gardens, a Luas stop, shops, a community centre, a swimming pool, gym, creche and outdoor football areas.

Ms McAleese recalled that the regeneration idea was driven by determined men and women of the Fatima Groups United umbrella body.