Richard Boyd Barrett on Cherrywood town centre failures and sports needs

Thanks, Cahir, and apologies I wasn't here on your own to speak across the Dole, but I've followed as much as I can and read some of the statements. Just one question to the Department of Finance. In your submission, you say that the housing demand will meet supply in the mid-2030s. Is what you're projecting, which is pretty shocking. Not terribly surprising in some ways, but it's pretty shocking. So just to confirm maybe that that's what is being projected, is that we're going to be facing an inadequate supply of housing until the mid-2030s. So we've got another decade of the housing crisis. And given, I mean, I don't believe the theory, by the way, that we'll get a supply to the point that price will drop. But I think it's nonsense. But insofar as the government are saying that that's what they think is going to happen, that there's no chance, based on that, that prices could drop before the mid-2030s. Which is a pretty grim outlook, I would have thought. So I'd be interested in comment on that. You can come back in a second. I just want to, my main thing is I want to ask the office of the regulator, the planning regulator. Is the, and it's a concrete example of the need for sports facilities, the need for infrastructure, where there's big residential development going on. And that's Cherrywood, which is the biggest residential development going on in the entire country. One of the biggest in Europe, in my constituency. In the middle of Cherrywood, even though we now have a huge amount of it built out, the developers, private developers have made a lot of money. There's a lot of residential. We've got a couple of shops, a couple of coffee shops. And there is an enormous, enormous hole in the ground where the town centre was supposed to be, with all the community facilities and all the rest of it. And basically, I don't know if you know much about it, but it's just shocking. Because the developer are basically holding us all over a barrel. The people who live there, the whole thing was predicated on there's supposed to be a town centre and the developers just don't want to build it because it's not profitable. There's a bridge that joins two parts together. They won't build it. And they're allowed away with this. Right? They're allowed away with it. It's absolutely disgraceful. They've managed to get a higher densification, an amendment on the original STZ to build more houses, more profits. And we want the houses, don't get me wrong, but there's a big hole in the ground where the town centre is supposed to be. And they're allowed away with it. I mean, talk about repeating the mistakes of the past. It's just shocking. So I'd be interested to know if you have any comments about what can be done. Because I believe there should be very, very aggressive use it or lose it policies to take this thing back off them, to recoup profits they've made, whatever is necessary to get the town centre. And then on sports facilities, I don't know if you know anything about this. And this isn't, by the way, a comment against ice hockey or anything like it. But apparently there's a private consortium that want to build two ice hockey rinks, a convention centre and so on, have asked the government for what is rumoured to be, but I can't get confirmation, for between 60 and 80 million to build this thing that nobody asked for. Nobody asked for. Right? They want a town centre in Cherrywood. This is in Cherrywood. But they're going to build these private investors and are asking the government for 60 to 80 million for an ice hockey rink that nobody asked for. So meanwhile, meanwhile, football clubs and GAA clubs like St. Joseph's, like Sally Noggin-Pierce, like Dalky United, like local GAA clubs are crying out for Astro pitches. Right? And with all that residential development, they're going to need them even more. Most teams haven't played a match for weeks because we don't have enough Astros. Right? And the council, based on English data, as I think you've confirmed, have said we don't need any Astros. We have enough. Right? So there's a possibility we could get ice hockey rinks that nobody asked for, but we can't get the Astros, which the well-established football clubs in the area that are desperately in need of are begging for. Begging for. So I just wonder, like, how do we address problems like that? Because I just can't believe, frankly, what's going on up there. So any comments would be welcome. Thank you, Deputy. And as you're probably aware, you know, Cherrywood's strategic development zone is, if you like, informed by a development scheme or a planning scheme that is made by the local authority. I won't get into commentary around, you know, individual sort of projects that are being debated. I've been to Cherrywood. I've seen some of the progress on the ground, particularly in relation to sports facilities, which have been delivered in a partnership between, you know, the development agency or the development company and the local authority on the far side of the M11, and heading up towards, obviously, the uplands on the far side of the motorway, and they are tremendous facilities and are in use in huge demand by communities all over that area, as I understand it. They certainly are. Yes, I'm seeing that in action. And I suppose, you know, our research is trying to, if you like, provide insight in relation to, you know, considering contemporary Ireland and the fact that, you know, communities and good planning is at the heart of good communities. As I said earlier, you know, what are the relevant standards in relation to various active recreational and amenity facilities that we should be providing at the heart of developing areas? In the UK, there is the sport England relationship between that, the sports infrastructure area and the planning area. We don't have, or we haven't had an analogous relationship until very recently. Sports Ireland is now a prescribed body for engagement with local authorities in relation to their development plans. But the key question, and to some extent your contribution has sort of outlined that, what are the standards that we would apply? You know, are they standards that we draw upon from 1930s, UK, post-war, inter-war, suburban housing and so on, when effectively we were planning for fields of playing pitches? You know, today Ireland is culturally much more diverse. There are new sporting codes that people want to be engaged in. And whereas, you know, Alan Dunney was absolutely correct in outlining that local authorities provide, you know, significant amounts of open space in their development plans, what are the funding mechanisms that support our local authorities in the delivery of that infrastructure? Bearing in mind that if you're building a piece of road infrastructure, you're dealing with TII, the local authority, public transport, national transport authority, water infrastructure, Ishka Eirn. When it comes to sports facilities, who do you call, you know, in the context of the funding and the delivery of it? It's a very complex area involving voluntary organisations, sports partnerships, sometimes commercial entities. So I think we have prioritised this work. We have a lot of pressure on our resources and demands on our resources, but we're fast-tracking this work, Deputy, in the context of trying to provide insight. And there's a significant programme of preparing national planning statements underway in the Department of Housing. And, you know, from engagement with the local authorities and the Department, and the Department of Support, I should say, as well, they're also part of the process. We hope to have some insight in relation to where we might go with that process by summertime. So, top priority for us.