asked the Minister for Local Government when the CPO in the City Quay area of Dublin will be finalised.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Dublin City CPO.
27.
I would remind the Deputy that this is a matter for Dublin Corporation in the first instance. I understand they have not yet made an order.
In view of the Dublin City Manager's statement that the law regarding CPOs is Victorian would the Minister take the necessary action to update the law?
I have advisers other than the Dublin City Manager. I do not think he is the greatest expert in the country on this.
That is clearly a vindictive slight on the Dublin City Manager.
He is responsible for the Dublin area. It is the prerogative of the city manager; he says there are laws which need to be updated. I believe they should be looked into and I would ask the Minister to look into them as soon as possible.
Would the Minister consider——
Would the Minister be allowed to reply to the initial supplementary question?
The reply is——
A snarl.
——that I will most certainly take into consideration any recommendations made in good faith by Deputies of this House.
Would the Minister consider offering co-operation to the city manager instead of making slighting remarks about him?
Deputies
Hear, hear.
The people want houses and I do not want any arrogance from the Minister towards the city manager.
Is this a question or a statement?
It is a statement.
On a point of order, is it correct for a Minister of State lo attack someone outside the House?
This is not an appropriate time to enter into disputation or argument at all.
Are Deputy Moore and Deputy Lemass saying that the Dublin City Manager is the most efficient person to recommend on CPOs in the country?
I am saying it is disorderly to make a slighting remark about a public officer who is not a Member of this House.
I simply said I have advisers other than the Dublin City Manager, and so I have. I have not asked the Dublin City Manager for advice.
I think the Minister should withdraw his remark.
I have not said anything which has to do with laws and I repeat that I did not say the Dublin City Manager does not know, but he is not the greatest expert in the country, and I repeat that, on housing or on CPOs.
Would the Minister accept that the Dublin City Manager, by virtue of his office, must have considerable experience of the working of the law in regard to compulsory purchase orders and it is, almost by definition, therefore, true that his views would be of use to the Minister?
He also had them before February.
Is it not an extraordinary thing that the city manager has only discovered now that this is so? Surely if he had those views he should have expressed them over the years. I believe, and my advisers tell me, that the present CPO system is not the perfect one, but we have suddenly found the city manager has decided to make an announcement in public about it. He did not tell me. He announced it in public.
(Interruptions.)
Sour grapes.
Question No. 28.
The Minister does not seem to appreciate that the city manager had made that statement before.
(Interruptions.)
Do not be so touchy.
If he made that statement before nobody passed any remarks about it.
Question No. 28. I have called Question No. 28.