asked the Minister for the Environment if he will outline actions and policies being pursued at present or to be pursued in the near future by his Department to alleviate or deal with any aspect of the difficulties confronting the socially and economically disadvantaged area of the inner city of Dublin, north of the River Liffey; and if he will give details of the proposed time-table in respect of any such initiative, and the amounts of moneys, including grants, subsidies or other resources which arise in this regard.
Written Answers. - Dublin Inner City.
634.
In general, the policies and programmes of my Department in relation to the Dublin inner city area take the form of providing financial and other support for the development of the activities and programmes of Dublin Corporation in relation to the area. An exception to this is the Dublin Inner City Group, which is under the aegis of my Department and which provides directly financial assistance for various projects of an educational, social, economic, recreational or environment nature. Since the beginning of 1982, a total of £266,064 has been allocated by way of grant for various projects in the north inner city area and £173,630 has been paid in respect of these allocations. The capital allocation of £62,500,000 which has been made available to Dublin Corporation to finance their overall local authority housing construction programme in 1983 contains an adequate amount to finance the corporation's housing programme in the north inner city area. Since 1974, 527 new dwellings have been provided in the area, a total of 333 are in course of erection and a further 324 will commence this year. In addition, a further 281 houses are in planning and 116 sites are being acquired.
The Catholic Housing Aid Society is currently constructing 21 flats for the accommodation of the elderly at Berkeley Street. This development is estimated to cost £602,500 and a loan of £570,000 will be provided by Dublin Corporation. On 16 February 1983, I sanctioned the borrowing by the corporation of £250,000 from the Local Loans Fund for the purpose of providing loan assistance for the development in the current year.
Environment improvement schemes provide temporary employment opportunities mainly for young people. A total of £5.674 million is available to Dublin Corporation for these schemes this year. This will enable the corporation to retain in employment during the year 110 workers who have been employed on environment works since 1979, and also to provide temporary employment for some 700 young people. The scheme is funded by the Youth Employment Agency and my Department, and many of the participants come from the inner city area.
Traffic congestion adds to the difficulties of the inner city areas and to alleviate this, support for the provision of an inner tangent ring road is being provided. The section of the road north of the River Liffey will be routed through Summerhill, Parnell Street and North King Street. A compulsory purchase order for the acquisition of properties in the Parnell Street area was confirmed in 1980. Road grants totalling £550,000 (including £300,000 in the current year) have been allocated for this section of the road and the finance has been used mainly for property acquisition. Outline plans of the Parnell Street section are awaited from the corporation but it is understood that CPOs will be necessary for property acquisition in the two other sections involved, Summerhill and North King Street.
Dublin Corporation is also pursuing a programme for the provision of multi-storey car parks in the city centre in conjunction with private developers. One such development, at the ILAC centre, has been in operation for some time. Construction work on a similar project, for a 500 space multi-storey car park at Waterford Street, commenced in March 1983, and is expected to be completed by the autumn of 1984. These developments are important both to the physical redevelopment of the inner city and to traffic management. The provision of sufficient spaces for short-term parking is vital to the business and social life of the city centre. Measures designed to secure the availability of such parking space include the provision of extra meter parking spaces, proposed increase in parking meter fees so as to achieve better availability of meter spaces and traffic management measures to assist the operation of the bus service.
The action to be taken concerning the future development of the Port and Docks Board site alongside the Custom House and the other matters covered by the Urban Development Areas Bill and the Dublin Inner City Development Authority Bill, 1982, is under review.