Council has made money available

Sir, – Alice Leahy (Letters, June 11th) is correct about the need for city centre public showers and toilets and that she circulated those proposals to Dublin City Councillors on several occasions.

She is also correct in saying that action should have been taken on these and that Dublin deserves better.

What may not be known is that Dublin City Councillors have at least twice voted for the introduction of such facilities and provided the initial funding in the city budget.

The fact that they have not been delivered is down solely to our system of local government with huge powers resting with the executive.

This is the deliberate policy of both the permanent and temporary governments. What I cannot understand however is the complicit behaviour of the vast majority of media in Ireland which protects and implicitly defends the disastrous role of the Department of Housing and Local Government in our country.

From my experience in nearly 30 years as a public representative is that huge swathes of Ireland’s problems – starting with housing, planning and local government – all lead back to the Custom House [Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage].

– Yours, etc,

Cllr DERMOT LACEY

Donnybrook,

Dublin 4.