Late last year it was announced that approximately 170 acres at Lucan Demesne were to be put up for public auction. At that time local community groups, the local community council and the Liffey Valley Defence Alliance contacted the public representatives on the Kildare side, the Lucan side and the Blanchardstown side of the area concerned and asked us to lobby the local authorities and central Government to have this land taken into public ownership.
I pay tribute to those groups who have worked tirelessly for 20 years trying to ensure that the integrity of the valley would be retained. They have done everything in their power to ensure that it was protected. We had a series of meetings with the then Minister for Finance, Deputy Ahern, the Minister for Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht, Deputy Higgins, and Deputy Stagg, then Minister of State at the Department of Environment. The response was extremely good and very favourable. That was a major achievement because we were trying to establish a precedent. Various Ministers accepted the special significance of the Liffey Valley and were enthusiastic about the possibility of public ownership. Unfortunately, the events of November had many consequences for everyone, but particularly for the people who were pushing for public ownership of this land. We had reached the stage where an offer was going to be made, but then the Government changed and this left a hiatus. People felt that this issue was threatened again.
The Liffey Valley is a major amenity and anyone living in the Dublin area recognises it as such. It was the subject of the only special area amenity order signed in this country in 1989 by the then Minister for the Environment, Mr. Pádraig Flynn. Any development — I do not mean desecration, but the proper development — of the Liffey Valley is hampered by the fact that little, if any, of it is in public ownership. While we may have great ambitions or aspirations for the Liffey Valley, they may not become reality because it is in private ownership.
We cannot under-estimate the significance of purchasing this land. It has great tourism and recreational potential. The Minister is aware — I believe he fought off a similar attempt in his own county — that there have been several well publicised attempts to rezone the land for houses. This was done by barter — if part of the land was developed some of it would be used for recreational purposes. Attempts were made to do this with the three new local authorities but they were unsuccessful and the land was protected. If the land, which is currently for sale, does not come into public ownership, such threats will always hang over it. Even if the local authorities and local politicians did not give in to the carrot of amenity land in place of possible development, the opportunity to purchase a significant amount of land in the Liffey Valley would not occur again.
I urge the Minister to proceed with the purchase of Lucan Demesne; I know there was a commitment by the Fianna Fáil-Labour Government to bring this unique area into public ownership. I ask the Minister if the deal has been done and if this will become public property.
