Ben White

Yeah, that's right, Clare.

We're an estate in County Mead of approximately 80 and forward slash 100 houses, mixed residents, retirees,

many commuters working in Dublin and I suppose the historical context would be the estate would be a product of the Celtic Tiger era and it's probably north of 30 years old at this stage and my understanding through research is that developer or builder builds estate and the process then is to

handed over to Meade County Council.

But in this case, it was never handed over and the estate was left in limbo or unmanaged in the interim.

So what we have now is potholes, broken paths, you know, an estate falling into disrepair from a

from a construction perspective.

Well, I mean, my own father-in-law, we were coming back from Super Value and I kind of took my eye off the ball, Clare.

He's north of 83 and he fell and tumbles.

Now he's robust enough and recovered.

um but you know um a lesser human might have had a different outcome um yeah so um i understand the lady in the interim has broken her wrist um and they're just two of the reported ones you know i've had a few you know stumbles over the years myself but i mean uh you know aligned to the fact we're paying a local property tax clear um and 70 or 80 percent of this estate would be

you know, PAYE workers, I'm guessing.

Correct, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I remember Fergus O'Dowd in his tenure as Environmental Minister, Fianna Gael sold us the property tax on the back of this that, you know, we would have services within our community, you know, the grasses would be cut, the trees would be pruned, etc, etc.

Now I know

in the context of what's going on in the world, it's probably a first world problem and broken parts in the schemes of everything that's going on right now probably doesn't sit high on many lists or many people's agendas.

you know, from an engineering perspective, Clare, and you mentioned budgetary concerns there, I don't think in the scheme of things, and I work in engineering, I don't think it's a big fix, Clare, to be honest.

I think, you know,

And on the back of this as well, Alan articulated it very well there.

We're removing paths in County Mead at the moment for bicycle lanes, which is a great initiative, but we're removing good paths.