Mr. John Coleman:

I thank the Deputy for the questions and appreciate his points. When we look at how the Land Development Agency, LDA, can improve affordability, we must look at the bigger picture and the overarching reason for its establishment. While it will deliver in the short term in specific sites, that is not why it has been set up. I will refer to the tenure of the sites to which Deputy Barry referred. The bigger picture is to look at why there is a lack of affordability, what is the core, base reason, and what is underlying it all. The symptoms are a lack of affordability but we think one of the major core reasons is the lack of major deliverable development land being made available to the market, not only by the State but also private lands. Back in 2008, land was effectively frozen for six to eight years after the crash, where it was tied- up in creditor processes and for other reasons. Nothing was done with that land for long periods. There was no planning work and no advancing of the land in infrastructure and so on because the money was not available or was tied up somehow. It is not a coincidence that we have an affordability problem in Ireland now after land from all sectors was effectively locked up for six or seven years. If one believes that and that it is a core factor in the problem we have today, then it follows that restrictions or delays in bringing forward land for delivery causes high land values. It is undeniable that high land values then cause an increase in the cost of delivering a home or rent that is charged in housing that is built for rental. The LDA's core objective is to tackle that central factor and make much more land available for delivery so that we do not have these boom-bust, very high or nil values for land that we have experienced in the past ten years which is central to our issue. We will have a big structural involvement in the market. It is not only what we deliver today or tomorrow in the tenure mix but it goes to the core of why we are suffering from this issue. Ultimately, high land costs fall at the feet of the person who is buying or renting and that is what we seek to address. That is the big picture for the LDA, which I cannot stress enough.

On privatisation, some private homes will be built but that has the effect of normal people buying houses on the open market as a result of them being developed. They are going to be home owners. The land effectively transfers through the development process to homeowners. The privatisation is not to a faceless corporation or something, it is often people who want to own and buy their own house and it is a legitimate form of supply.