Ms Dearbhla Lawson:

I thank the Senator and Mr. Coleman. Certainly, it is worth looking at the context here and the Senator referred to the report on relevant public land. We are on a journey here because we published that at the end of March. That was the first time identifying lands that have potential for development for affordable and social housing had been done. As Mr. Coleman said, a lot of those lands are in operational use at the moment. That is the first step in the process that we have taken and it has identified some 83 sites that could deliver up to 67,000 homes. Now that could be into the long term and there are choices and opportunities there as to how we do that. Therefore, there is good collegiate and collaborative working with the various State agencies. There are of course different pressures and priorities and there are policy choices into the future as well. In the likes of Dublin, there are 24 different sites and they are classed from nearer-term to longer-term sites. As Broadstone, for example, is a class 3 site, it is recognised there is operational interest, things need to be moved, there is a cost to that. We need to find a way, while working with CIÉ and the various parent Departments, to try to look at that. We started with a feasibility study and now we are moving on to a master plan. As it is a plan-led approach, we need to develop the evidence and support to try to find a step plan to move this forward. Similarly, there is a very significant amount of land around Inchicore, about 40 ha, owned between the ESB, CIÉ and the OPW , as well as by DCC across the canal in Bluebell.