Noonan: Support for regeneration project is gone

FINE GAEL finance spokesman and Limerick City candidate, Michael Noonan, yesterday claimed the huge regeneration plan for the city had lost its way and the huge support it had was now gone.

Mr Noonan said he was also disappointed at the progress and focus of the regeneration plan which was launched in 2008 with a €3 billion price tag.

He said: “The other worry I have with regeneration is that it had massive support from the communities in the regeneration areas and the wider Limerick community when it started. That’s gone now on account of the way it was handled.”

It pledged to build and replace 7,240 houses in Moyross, St Mary’s Park Southill and Ballinacurra Weston.

Since then not a single house has been built.

More than 200 families from the four regeneration agencies have been moved into private houses bought in private estates by Limerick City Council, Limerick County Council and Clare County Council at a cost of more than €41 million.

Most of the city council’s regeneration allocation has been spent on demolishing 600 houses.

Limerick County Council has been buying up houses in city suburbs under its control with €8m it has received to date to accommodate families who want to move out of the regeneration areas into private houses as tenants of the county council.

Mr Noonan said this had caused other problems for the regeneration plan.

“One of the big issues is that the whole antisocial behaviour problem caused by rented houses in the private estates around the city has eroded, unfairly, support for regeneration,” he said.

While hundreds of houses had been knocked in the four regeneration areas, nothing had been built.

Mr Noonan said: “That’s not great progress and it’s been going on for nearly three years now. On the focus of it: I don’t believe the focus should be on bricks and mortar. I think obviously to build new houses is very important, but I think the focus should be on the people and I would like to see much stronger intervention programmes for children in high-risk families from the very start — even prenatal attention for their mothers. Effectively there are families that need to be taken by the hand, right through school to give them the opportunities.”

Chief executive of the regeneration agencies, Brendan Kenny, last week dismissed claims that families who had been moved from the four regeneration areas had been the cause of increased antisocial behaviour in private estates in city suburbs.

“Any person wishing to move is heavily vetted by the local council and the gardaí who must be satisfied that the applicants can and should be re-housed.”

The Northside Regeneration Agency — which is overseeing the Moyross and St Mary’s Park element of the huge project — last week put out tenders for the first new regeneration housing development which will be built at Cliona Park, Moyross.

This project will involve some 13 two-and-three-bed houses, and 20 one-room apartments. The apartments will be allocated to elderly residents.

Building work is expected to start in April with completion set for September 2012.

He said the development is hugely important to the entire regeneration programme and would mean that instead of money going to the local councils to buy houses for rent, this money would go on building new houses in the four areas.

“We will now be moving from the destruction and demolition of houses to the construction of new houses and people will be able to see progress on the ground and we are likely to see more good families opting to stay in the regeneration areas rather than move out in order to seek a better quality of life.”