This matter is of importance in relation to the progress to date by the Dublin Institute of Technology in acquiring a site for a new campus at the location of the old St. Brendan's Hospital in the Grangegorman area. I want to know what has happened to date and how it is intended to use the site.
In 1991 the Dublin Institute of Technology was established through legislation. Having been established on a legislative footing, it proceeded to search for a new campus for its six colleges. Currently they are located in separate areas across Dublin – Mountjoy Square, Cathal Brugha Street, Bolton Street, Chatham Row, Kevin Street and Rathmines. All the colleges are located in a different campus and all are in very confined spaces totalling ten acres of land.
A search of the city found a suitable site at Grangegorman which is adjacent to the heart of the city, to which the colleges could relocate, in so far as relocation could take place, and where playing fields, student buildings and so on could be provided. The institute negotiated with the Eastern Health Board, which agreed to sell it 70 acres of its 90 acres for its new campus. This happened five or six years ago. The final decision would have been taken later than that, but negotiations have been ongoing for that length of time.
The Dublin Institute of Technology designed its plans, having met the local community in the general Oxmantown area, told them what was proposed, what type of structures and buildings would be put in place, that the recreational facilities – football fields, tennis courts and so on – would be open to the local community. Everybody thought it an excellent idea. A price was put on the site – in the region of £10 million at the time, and the Eastern Health Board agreed to dispose of the site to the Dublin Institute of Technology.
Since then everything seems to have fallen into a strange kind of limbo. The project has been frozen in time. No progress has been made one way or another, and nobody seems to know exactly what is going on. Whenever one asks a question about it, the response is that the matter is proceeding. However, it has been going nowhere in recent years. I understand that now the fee for the land has been increased – property prices have increased enormously since the original fee was negotiated.
Obviously, the Dublin Institute of Technology cannot proceed without funding from the Government. The Government is dragging its feet on providing that funding. I am surprised by that, given that the college and the site would be located in the Taoiseach's constituency, the National College of Ireland, which I would have thought had much more tenuous claims to third level status, was opened last month in the docklands and three of the Dublin Institute of Technology colleges are already located in the area on the north side of the city.
I do not know, and nobody seems to know, what precisely is the situation. What is the reason for the hold-up? Are the plans still in existence? Is there a firm intention that the purchase will go through? If so, has the cost increased and by what amount has it increased? Are the same plans and designs going to hold good? Will there be a full transfer of functions and faculties to the site? Will the student accommodation, the music hall or the planned headquarters come on stream? Will the Minister of State put us out of our misery by indicating when this major public project will come on stream or if it will come on stream during the Government's term of office?
