Sinn Féin: Limerick Regeneration Boards being Obstructed

limerick | rights, freedoms and repression | opinion/analysis Saturday March 22, 2008 15:01 by Cael - Sinn Féin

Housing estates abandoned by City Council

ATTEMPTS by some members of Limerick City Council to place obstacles in the way of the new regeneration boards must be condemned, a spokesman for Republican Sinn Féin said this week.

ATTEMPTS by some members of Limerick City Council to place obstacles in the way of the new regeneration boards must be condemned, a spokesman for Republican Sinn Féin said this week.

Joe Lynch from Ballinacurra Weston, a member of an advisory committee working with the regeneration board in the Southside of Limerick, said that while some city councillors are complaining about a lack of information the reality is that the city council abandoned many housing estates down the years.

"It is now the highest form of hypocrisy for these councillors to criticise the regeneration boards when it is the city council that failed the residents of the Troubled estates.

"For 50 years they turned its back on the problems of the estates and allowed anti-social and criminal behaviour to drive decent people out of their homes.

"The fact that the city council does not control the regeneration boards seems to be a complaint, but the boards are dealing directly with the affected residents and this is a new departure in Limerick and it must be welcomed.

"These councillors, instead of complaining about their roles being diminished, would be better off to consult with the people they abandoned in the housing estates. Then they may gain some standing in the local community”.