Minister asked to ‘not wash his hands’ on long-awaited centre

CALLS FOR action have been made to ensure that the long-awaited community centre in Citywest is delivered through the community centre investment fund.

Paul Murphy TD has called on Minister Dara Calleary and made the point that although there is a huge amount of housing development in the area, there is a severe lack of facilities.

Residents of Citywest have been waiting “for more than 20 years for a community centre,” which was first written into the local area plan in 2012 and was made a binding condition of planning permission in 2018.

Citywest is one of the fastest growing communities in all of Ireland almost 4,000 homes in a decade, more than 2,000 of them in the last three years.

He highlighted the emotion on the ground at Citywest, with residents feeling as though care has not been taken by either the council or government officials to ensure there is adequate facilities for the tens of thousands of residents.

“Residents say they feel like they have been forgotten and they are absolutely right because this is classic developer-led planning; throw up the homes but don’t give the facilities to integrate and build a community.”

Deputy Murphy shared the frustration of residents in Citywest who have been promised a community centre but have yet to witness any development, as SDCC most recently stated that it would be delivered in June of this year.

He told the Oireachtas that since 2018,

“nearly 4,000 homes have been built and hundreds more are now planned at Boherboy and there is still no community centre. The council’s capital plan does not show any grant from the Minister’s Department.”

He appealed to the Minister “not to wash his hands of this” and engage with SDCC to track delivery and “make sure that this centre opens next year,” after they failed to complete the project in June.

Deputy Dara Calleary responded to Deputy Murphy’s comments calling on SDCC to begin development on this centre as promised, saying:

“I assure the Deputy that I will not be washing my hands of it but, equally, the council has to show interest and intent. I am not going to spoon-feed the council.

Funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme.