Dunne denies developers shirk social duties at home
Mr Dunne was in Cape Town volunteering as a foreman on the Niall Mellon Township Challenge.
He said although Irish property developers found it an onerous legal requirement to release 12% of all new properties at affordable prices, they had obliged.
“I don’t think they [developers] have tried to duck out of it. They did find it difficult to live with. But anybody who tried to duck out of it was dealt with by the local authorities,” said Mr Dunne.
Since the creation of the Part V legislation, the industry has successfully lobbied to have its obligations reduced by a third.
Regulations had to be tightened to curtail builders buying out social housing clauses to protect the value of up-market developments.
In a similar way, Mr Dunne has indicated his preference is to transfer this requirement away from his controversial development at the Jurys site in Ballsbridge.
Yesterday, he argued developers had always played their part and were wrongly tarnished during the property boom.
“I think they unfairly get a bad reputation when you think what Irish builders and developers have done for Ireland and have done for here [South Africa] it puts a different perspective on it.
“I feel this week is an opportunity for me to give something back. It is important we do not become hostages to wealth creation,” he said.
Worldwide chief executive of the Niall Mellon Trust, Paddy Maguinness, said the blitz was possible because a lot of individual tradesmen wanted to share their good fortune.
“We have to go now and push the private sector into sponsorship of these programmes. You look around the site and these are people who are involved in the construction industry giving their time, money and expertise and this is what the private sector can do as well,” he said.
A Newry native, Mr Maguinness said the need for social housing had kicked off the civil rights marches at the start of the North’s troubles and South Africa needed to learn from those mistakes.
He said once the model was mastered in South Africa, the Trust would look at replicating it elsewhere and talks were held with the President of Tanzania.
His comments came just hours after a life-size replica of the Free Derry Wall collapsed. It is a symbolic link between the Freedom Park residents and the Civil Rights’ Movement. This was the only major setback and the rest of the blitz is ahead of schedule, despite a shortage of plasterers.
Nobody was injured.
The wall will be rebuilt on a smaller scale to allow the garden open as planned at lunchtime on Friday.
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