Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

Ms Doherty pinpointed an important national issue, including for Cork city, when she referred to land hoarding of such a scale that it was causing an increase in land values. The knock-on effect of this land not being utilised is a housing shortage, causing an increase in the price of housing and a significant increase in the cost of rent. We must focus on this issue. What is going on is, in my opinion, criminal. It might not be breaking the law of the land but, in anyone's moral code, it is criminal that, in the midst of the greatest housing crisis in the history of the State, there are wealthy individuals further enriching themselves through this activity. It needs to be tackled. That is one of the reasons I welcomed the comment about examining the protections afforded by the Constitution to private property. CPOs have been mentioned. I am not necessarily in favour of limiting ourselves to CPOs that end up with us paying top dollar for land. Some people have profiteered from hoarding land, so the State acquiring it at rates that are nowhere near to top dollar market rates is in the interests of society and those who are suffering during the housing crisis.

I noted carefully Mr. Geaney's comments about eight years on the housing waiting list not being exceptional in Cork. If we could get a breakdown of those figures, it would be interesting. I suspect that, when we examine them forensically, we will probably see that a period of ten or 12 years is not exceptional either. I cited the example of firefighters, nurses and teachers being unable to afford to buy in Cork city.

Let us get down to the brass tacks. We have land, albeit not a lot, in the council's ownership. The last large council landbank is on the Old Whitechurch Road.

Given the points that have been made about affordability and people being locked out of the market, even people on average wages, and given the idea of a social housing waiting list with nearly 4,000 people on it, on which spending eight years is not at all exceptional, the use of 100% of those public lands for public housing - by which I mean council housing and units genuinely affordable for working people, which the State contracts a builder for and provides at cost price - is clearly needed.

I am completely opposed to the Land Development Agency ratio of 60:30:10. I will ask a question about this in a moment. If a ratio of 60:30:10 was applied to the Old Whitechurch Road, it would mean the following. If there were 600 houses, 360 would be priced at the market rate, which is unaffordable for very many. Some 180 would be what the Government defines as "affordable", the market rate minus maybe €50,000, which is still unaffordable for young people who have come out of college and worked for a couple of years and for older workers on the average wage. For 10% to be social housing would mean providing 60 units when there is a housing list of nearly 4,000, with many people waiting for ten years or more. I have a direct question for Mr. Geaney. What is the envisaged mix on the Old Whitechurch Road, as an example of public lands in Cork? Why would we not assign 100% of that site and similar sites to public housing, that is, council housing and genuinely affordable houses?

A long list of sites was provided by the speakers from Cork City Council, belonging to the HSE, ESB, Iarnród Éireann, the Port of Cork, Bord na Móna and the Department of Defence. One of the biggest concentrations of State-owned land outside of local authority control in the State is in the Cork area. A lot of it is NAMA-owned, though not exclusively. The Land Development Agency is being set up so that those public lands will be privatised, with at least 60% going to developers for resale at market rates. I would love to see a situation where the likes of Cork City Council could play a central role in building on those lands and overseeing the development of 100% social and genuinely affordable public housing because clearly that is needed. I wonder if the speakers from the city council would like to comment on that.