An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business
Seanad Éireann — 2026-04-16
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Chris Andrews (SF), Labour Panel

I concur with Senator Conway. It is objectionable that we are sending live cattle to Israel. We should not be trading with Israel in addition to the animal welfare issues.
I raise the matter of the Irish Glass Bottle site. There was a commitment to put 350 new public homes on that site. There are 550 affordable ones. The Irish Glass Bottle Housing Action Group has been fighting with the State for the last nine years. It has gone through four Ministers for housing. Deputy Browne is the current Minister and the group representatives have been looking to meet him but he has refused to date. I find it amazing the new Government housing policy is entitled Delivering Homes, Building Communities. The policy is not delivering homes for families living in the communities of Ringsend, Pearse Street and Kevin Street. Government is not building communities but dividing them. Due to the cost of new homes being built on the Irish Glass Bottle site and around the city families cannot live there so communities are being split up and people are having to move further afield. I ask that the Minister meet the Irish Glass Bottle Housing Action Group. Like I said, the group has been through four Ministers for housing in its time.
The Government talks about building communities but the Minister for housing, Deputy Browne, has also refused to meet the residents in Pearse House, even though he pulled a regeneration plan which is desperately needed. He has put in a new deep retrofitting plan, which is effectively a lick of paint and some maintenance work, which is of course welcome, but it is not what the residents in Pearse House desperately need. I ask that the Minister meet with Pearse House residents and the Irish Glass Bottle Housing Action Group to ensure their voices are heard too. Residents in Ringsend and Pearse Street have been let down by the State for long enough and the least the Minister could do is show respect to the residents in Pearse House and the inner-city communities in Ringsend by meeting with them and ensure their issues are highlighted and worked through. The homes in Ringsend are not going to be affordable purchase, they will be affordable rental. The cost of that rental is going to be exorbitant and the local community will not be able to afford to live there. The communities will then be divided and people will have to move out, and that is very unfair and disrespectful to any community.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-04-16/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:49+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-04-16