This has become a saga. The first meeting on the transfer of lands to the Dublin Institute of Technology from the Eastern Health Board took place in October 1995, exactly six years ago. A further meeting of all the parties and all public representatives for the area, including the Taoiseach, took place in March 1996. At that meeting it was indicated that agreement in principle had been reached that 67 of the 77 acres were surplus to the requirement of the Eastern Health Board and would be transferred to the Dublin Institute of Technology. Every few months since then there have been promises that this would happen within months.
I initiated this idea as it was clear the lands at Grangegorman were becoming surplus to requirements and were becoming very derelict, as were the buildings on the land. In addition, many local football and sports clubs which had used of the lands were being inched off them, prompting me to raise questions about the proposed future of the lands.
Every residents' association was consulted not once but several times, and several public meetings were held which were attended by members of the Eastern Health Board, the corporation and the Dublin Institute of Technology. All meetings fully supported the idea of the EHB lands at Grangegorman being used as a third level campus for the Dublin Institute of Technology. Nobody resisted this idea – it was unanimously supported by people in their hundreds through attendance at meetings, letters and petitions. All the public representatives also supported the idea.
The Celtic tiger has come and gone, and the lands, which are within a few hundred yards of Dominic Street, which leads to Henry Street in the city centre, are lying fallow. There is a housing crisis in the city, and if the Dublin Institute of Technology is not to get the land, then some of it could be used to address that crisis. However, there is still very strong local support for its use by the Dublin Institute of Technology.
We have been pressing this issue since 1995. On 3 March 1998 the president of the Dublin Institute of Technology wrote to me saying "I agree, this would be a very fine campus". A few months later he told me he expected this not to be settled within a few weeks, but "within a couple of months . . . and not many months". Since then it has always been on the brink of being settled. Every few months I got letters saying it would be solved shortly. I do not have time to go through all the letters I have received over the years.
I spoke to the Taoiseach, Deputy Bertie Ahern, and wrote to him, to outline the great opportunity of this huge area of land. I have no doubt he is as interested in it as I am. An interdepartmental group was set up at my suggestion, chaired by the Department of the Taoiseach. The reply to each inquiry since has been that it is being studied and it will be ready. I was told two months ago that the interdepartmental group report would be available within weeks, perhaps two weeks. It is now the end of October 2001, exactly six years after the original proposal appeared to be accepted, and there is the same promise that a report will be produced imminently. I want to know where is the interdepartmental group and who are the members? Will it report shortly and, if so, when will the report be published? To what extent will local public representatives and local residents be involved? I ask the Minister of State to realise that the longer the land lies there the more uncertainty and problems it will create for neighbouring areas such as Stoneybatter, Grangegorman, Rathdown Road, Aughrim Street and nearby Church Street and Broadstone.
I ask the Minister of State to come clean and not fob us off any more by saying it will happen in another few weeks if that is not the case. I want to have a date and to hear what will happen to this land.
