Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I will make three very short points. First, CPO does not work insofar as it takes too long and is too expensive. There is no legal or constitutional reason compensation should require market value, especially when there is such a gap between the existing-use value and the market value. One of the reasons our local authorities are less likely to CPO land for housing is that it is prohibitively expensive. This is why two Law Reform Commission reports have strongly recommended reform in this area, among other things.

My second point is that the LDA cannot do active land management. It has said this itself. The officials on either side of the Minister of State know this. When the agency published its significant report, the point was repeatedly made that, because the body does not have comprehensive CPO powers, it has no negotiating power when it goes to State agencies to engage with them. Other than land voluntarily provided to the LDA, the agency has been singularly unsuccessful in acquiring State lands, which, of course, under the provisions of the Land Development Agency Act 2021, it can acquire at discount values, depending on whether the land is intended for social or affordable housing. The agency is now being forced into looking at market-value land. It is a completely crazy situation.

For me, there was a really disappointing aspect to this situation.

We saw a glimmer of hope on this front when the urban development zone general scheme was introduced. That, for the first time, had a provision – the Chair will remember this – where, within a UDZ, if a landowner was not activating their land, the local authority could step in and acquire it at a discount, the discount being the difference between its value and the amount payable under the land value sharing tax. Unfortunately, that has been shelved so we do not have movement on it. Given that Part V allows the State, under certain circumstances, to acquire land at existing use value, I do not understand why at some point somebody does not say that where a landowner who has residential zoning is not activating that land for no explicable reason, then the State should step in and give them an ultimatum to either develop the land or the State will go to the court and apply under a designated site scheme as per the Kenny report to acquire it at existing use value. We are not denying anybody their constitutional rights because we are giving the choice to develop the land for which they got zoning and, if not, the State will not pay them any more than its existing use value. That would be the sensible way to proceed. If that were done - in some sense, this is the spirit of Deputy O’Callaghan’s amendment – either you would get lots of land activated by the owners for fear of losing profitability by having to sell it at existing use value or you would get the land at a discounted price and you could develop it. Such legislation, not unlike the Planning and Development Act and Part V, would have to be referred to the President, who would refer to the Council of the State which would refer to the Supreme Court. That is not a bad thing because that would mean it would be constitutionally tested at the highest possible threshold.

The answers the Minister of State gave do not deal with the core issue, which is that we have lots of land with the gift of residential zoning that is not being developed, but the State does have a viable mechanism to access it. On that basis, I am happy to support Deputy O’Callaghan’s amendment.