THE GOVERNMENT are doing nothing to utilise bonds put forward by developers to help complete unfinished estates and this is not acceptable.

In response to questions I put to the Minister last week, Minister of State Ciarán Cuffe said “there is no pot of money for completion… there are bonds that have been put up by the developer. We will see what can be done to utilise them to improve life.”

The Minister’s answer is unacceptable. The health and safety of families is at risk while the Government takes a relaxed approach to the issue.

Local authorities are starved for money and can’t take charge of estates and get them finished because they have no available resources. The bonds were put in place initially so the county and city councils were protected if the developer couldn’t finish the estates.

Now that we are in this predicament, the local authorities have said that if they got some financial reassurances from central government the estates can be finished. By investing a little in these estates, it would help bring them up to an acceptable standard and people would be interested in buying them. It makes economical sense and I think the government needs to make this a priority.

I am working with a number of constituents who are living in estates which are only half occupied, some even less than half finished, and they fear that they will have to pay large sums, if something goes wrong, on top of the development fees they have already paid.