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

I have a supplementary question. Some of my questions were not answered, but I will come back to them in parliamentary questions. The LDA's 10% social housing and 30% affordable housing targets are in the launch document and were mentioned in both of the presentations today. It is all very well to say that those targets might be exceeded on certain sites, such as Housing Agency sites, but the model that has been proposed by the LDA is based on the controversial joint venture model and represents a poorer deal in terms of meeting social and affordable housing need. Are the 10% and 30% targets based on what the LDA considers to be a commercially viable financing model that is aimed at attracting the private sector and keeping this off the balance sheet rather than meeting housing need? I do not dispute what Mr. Coleman has said about strategic land management, but I will explain my problem with his response to my question about the residential end of the LDA's activities. We have two choices. We can pursue the model used in the case of Shanganagh Castle, which is a brilliant idea that essentially involves 100% public housing - a mix of social housing, affordable rental housing and affordable purchase - on a public site and will meet the needs of the local area. The alternative is to pursue the LDA model, which is an even worse version of what we have just been through in the case of Kilcarbery in south Dublin. In that case, a percentage of the land was made available for meeting social or affordable housing need and the rest was made available to meet private sector, open market price need. That is not a strategic use of public land. In my view, the LDA should add value by acquiring State lands from other public bodies and entering into joint ventures with local authorities to deliver the kinds of developments, like Shanganagh Castle, for which many of us have been arguing in our own local authorities. I am talking about fully public, mixed-income, mixed-tenure estates. Private developers are not needed in such cases. I accept that local authorities use private builders. All of this can be done in a way that maximises the output of social and affordable housing. I have yet to hear Mr. Coleman or Mr. Cussen explain why the joint venture model makes any sense in the context of the 10% social housing and 30% affordable housing targets. It adds complications and reduces the ability of the State to meet its social and affordable housing targets.