RESIDENTS OF disadvantaged housing estates in Limerick were told yesterday the Government was committed to the regeneration of the areas despite a series of setbacks.
Minister for the Environment and Local Government Phil Hogan, who visited one of the estates, Moyross, to scrutinise the area’s regeneration plans, said he was “fully committed to regeneration” and “fully committed to consultation with the communities”.
Last week the Minister said it was “a scandal” that not one new house had been completed under the major regeneration process since it was first announced five years ago.
He described how the people of Moyross, Southill, St Mary’s Park and Ballinacurra Weston – the four main regeneration areas of Limerick – had been promised by the previous government “the sun, the moon and the stars”, promises that he said “had not been honoured”.
Yesterday Mr Hogan met Brendan Kenny, chief executive of the Regeneration Agency, while on a fact-finding mission to see how the plans could be developed.
Mr Kenny, whose contract ends in June, said it was looking for at least €45 million from the Government in 2012, which would “make a very significant difference”.
The Minister of State with responsibility for housing, Jan O’Sullivan, said yesterday that the emphasis now had to be on delivering new homes for people.
Later, Mr Hogan was confronted by a protester dressed as a masked highway robber who accused the Minister of “robbing the poor to pay the rich”.
The protester was one of about a dozen people demonstrating against the household charge outside Limerick County Hall as the Minister went inside for meetings with local politicians.