Cherrywood in south Dublin is one of the biggest residential developments in Europe and the biggest in Ireland. It is a new town. There is going to be 25,000 to 30,000 people living there. The whole thing was conditional on the development of a town centre with community facilities, supermarkets and all the rest of it. The private developers who built the houses and made big profits are refusing to build the town centre on which the whole thing was predicated and are trying to put the State over a barrel on the town centre the community needs for this new town. They are just refusing to build it and are refusing to build bridges that were committed to. At the same time, I understand a group of private investors have asked the State for between €60 million and €80 million to build an ice rink and stadium in Cherrywood. While the town centre is not being built and grassroots sports groups and so on are crying out for facilities, a group of private investors, and I believe this is being entertained by a number of Departments, want to build a private ice rink for ice hockey. I spoke to the Irish Ice Hockey Association and it is not even in favour of it. Its representatives say for a fraction of that, they could build an ice rink, which would be good to have in Ireland but this is going to be given to private investors at massive cost when there is no town centre and when grassroots sports, including ice hockey itself, are starved of the money necessary to provide sports infrastructure for the people living in places like Cherrywood and in the wider area. I want this investigated. There is no way a €60 million to €80 million handout should be given to big private investors when there is no town centre in Cherrywood and when grassroots sports are desperate for money for sports infrastructure.

Sentiment score: -0.16