The collapse of the three major regeneration projects under the last Fianna Fáil Government in 2008 marked for me and many people the start of our economic difficulties. All three regeneration projects, O’Devaney Gardens, Dominick Street and Croke Villas were cancelled by Fianna Fáil, largely due to their economic mismanagement of the public finances and the failed model of Public Private Partnerships that they had employed during the ‘Boom’ years.

Too many North Inner City families were led up the garden path by Fianna Fáil and their developer friends. Since my election to Dublin City Council in 2009, I have been working to with residents, Council officials and my party following its entry into Government in 2011, to get these projects back on track, contractors on site and homes being built for North Inner City people.

Opposition parties and Councillors criticize me and my party by saying that money is not being provided to build public housing. So, I asked the Chief Executive of Dublin City Council, which sees Sinn Fein as the largest party, to provide details on the amount of money provided to allow O’Devaney Gardens, Croke Villas and Dominick Street regeneration projects move to construction and what stage each of these projects are at. Owen Keegan provided this information yesterday and as you can see, Fine Gael in Government has allocated €74.4m in funding to build 201 new public homes on each of these sites.

A contractor has now been selected to begin work on O’Devaney Gardens and that contractor will begin on site, even earlier that expected. I now expect Carey Construction to start preliminary works this month. Local information sessions will be organized to take place in Stoneybatter shortly and I will share details of those meetings on Facebook and through my local ‘Stoneybatter Matters’ newsletter.