Richard Boyd Barrett: Communities Not Being Heard

Yeah, well, look, first of all apologies I was a bit late but I did see you on the monitor. I was over the other side, in the Dáil. Yeah, well, look, first of all apologies I was a bit late but I did see you on the monitor. I was over the other side, in the Dáil. I don't really have a lot to add because I think what you've described is such a damning indictment of the government and local authorities' failure of your communities that it's really quite shameful. I mean, would you see it, you've more or less said this but, and we asked the officials when they were in here earlier on, is like, is it just as simple as they're just not listening to you? They're just not listening to the community and that they're playing a numbers game. And it's sort of at a sort of very high level of figures and numbers or whatever and there's just no, there's no listening to people, you know, and communities. Yeah, and for me personally I feel, and I've always said this, that if you're doing a project you get experts in. The experts are the residents, right? And we've always engaged more than 100% because we want what's best for our community. And I just think it's always been, we're the consistence, we're always there, we're always the constant, we always want to be, we want what's best for our community. The same as anyone else, no matter where they live, whether it's a house, an apartment or whatever, everybody wants what's best for themselves and their community around them to keep it sustainable. And I just find that, you know, sometimes I feel like we're being listened to but we're not being heard. And that's so, so annoying because you're sitting there and, as I said, you're like Groundhog Day, repeating yourself and you're repeating yourself and you're repeating yourself and you're saying, why am I doing this? But the reason we're doing it is because we're passionate about our communities. We're really passionate about where we live. I have grandchildren now. I had a lovely childhood in Dolphin House. I want my grandchildren in years to come to look back and say, I had a good childhood in Dolphin House. But that's not going to happen unless my favourite word of all time is collaboration. We all need to work together. We need to see that we need each other. Dublin City Council can't work without us. And we can't work without them. But we've always been the givers. And we need them, as I said, it's about collaboration, it's about us working together. I mean, at the moment, I'm just so saddened. We have a girl who walks with us, we're not saying names, but she's a health worker. And she's one of four that's left in a derelict block. And at the weekend, twice she came down to faeces. Horrendous faeces, like human faeces on our stairs. As a health worker, she must feel, I know she does, she tells me, this is horrendous on my own mental health. And she's not unique in that. But we've asked them to do a simple thing, put up a gate there. So that'll stop. Because there's no chance of her being moved for a while. But they're not listening to us. And there are simple solutions that would stop these problems. But we just seem to be falling on deaf ears. And that's a very hard thing to understand as you're going along every day. Can I just interject on the back of that? We had the Taoiseach out about five years ago. And then we also had the previous minister come out. So with all due respect, I know people want to visit. But I'd like people to visit on the grounds that something's going to happen. Because we had two visits already. And nothing has come of them visits. So I would like to suggest on the visit, that's the visit for action. Not for another publicity stunt. Not for another we don't know where we went. You need to see the reality. You need to see what we're living in. I can guarantee you that all the members here, and we work closely together on this committee. And we do. To try and make change. Our visit will be a visit to visit you in your houses. Not with a cameraman or not with anything like that. It'll be a visit to see what you've said here. But myself and Deputy McGrath are members of a government party. And we want to be able to help as well. So I can give you a guarantee. And that's every member of our committee. We have a very good collective. We differ on different things. But we work collectively together to make a difference. So I give you that commitment. And I can't give any guarantees. But I can tell you that we will work collectively to put pressure. And whatever we have to write to the minister, write to the department after our visit. We'll do a mini-report to identify the issues. I would say we will do that. Thank you. To the chair there, can I speak for a second? I suppose in relation to consultation, I sit on three regeneration structures in the South City area. And I suppose from my point of view and from the residents and tenants, they've been consulted to death. What we want is real, meaningful engagement. We have stood outside blocks during COVID and tried to sell master plans to residents and waited. Been there at night time. It's been at block meetings. All the residents here. We've done all that. But we want real, meaningful engagement. In 2023, we set up a community of practice in Dublin 8. And that was, I suppose, through conversations with staff and residents working and living in some of the projects. I suppose we found that all of the regeneration projects are looked at in silos. There was no conversations around best practice, shared experience, learning. And as Debbie said, the experts are the residents. Because they're constantly losing institutional memory. Constantly, DCC staff move on. And you have to start all over again. And yeah, it's soul destroying. So from the community of practice point of view, getting everybody into the room, having a meaningful dialogue and having them conversations has been really, really good. And I suppose still we're here today. I mean, in the South City, our experience, you're going back to, I mean, talking about the projects. St. Michael's Estate, the sod was turned recently. When it's eventually finished, it'll be a minimum of 29 years from the time it started. Dolphin House will be a minimum of 27 years. You know, you were taking, Gail, we were looking, 2025, we estimated that it will be nine years for phase one. Just phase one. And where's phase one now? So, I mean, I'm not sure the estimates for Pierce House. You're not part of our community of practice yet. But we're working on it. We're working on it. And that's getting everybody into a room and a dialogue. And Ken has facilitated that dialogue for us. And I suppose it's getting all of those actors into the room and start to share those experiences. It's so important. Sorry, Richard. Just on that as well, like, Pierce House was a fantastic place to live and grow. A hive of activity, like any inner city complex. You know, and we probably didn't know, growing up, the conditions we were living in. You know, expectations have obviously grown. But they were built, the flats were built for families. Fundamentally, they were built for families. And I think that's been lost on government and by the council as well, in terms of what the functionality of them was. I mean, every flat complex that you went into in the city, when I was a kid, you went out to Sheriff Street, you went up your way, like, it was a hive of activity. You know, now there's nothing there. You know, kids just, it doesn't happen anymore. The life, and they're gone so bad, I always look at it and I always say to myself, how far do we have to let it go in order for something to be done? You know, it really has to get, like, you look at five mansions, how bad that went, in order for something to be done. You know, and we're looking, and we're living through that now. In terms of housing, and the way it is, the drug dealing, the antisocial behaviour, and what we're supposed, the way we're supposed to live. It just needs to be addressed. Yeah, well, I would just, I would only say, like, I mean, obviously, it's not my direct constituency, although I've had, you know, I've been around Pierce and Dolphin House, and I don't know Oliver Bond so well, actually, but I've had some interaction with the residents there. But I do know that, even out our way, like, we had a massive fight to get the Mount Town Flats, which were like a mini Ballymun, essentially, and it took years and years and years. And we did eventually get there, and now there's the Masonettes will be the last. The Masonettes is a huge problem. They're kind of upsy-downsies, we call them. But people are in ridiculous, like, overcrowded conditions, and trying to get them regenerated. But I think what you say is important. The failure to recognize the importance of, like, families, number one, and there doesn't, there's been a big emphasis on one and two bedrooms because of units, I think, generally speaking, from developers and the councils, and not recognizing families and community networks as being important because people are playing the numbers game. And, like, you seem to be saying that, and that's certainly something that I'm seeing, and we're seeing, and I think councils and the government have to recognize that communities are important, and family networks and cohesion in communities in that regard is important. And you're not just seeing it in numbers terms, which I think often they do. Thank you. Thank you.