Mr. Owen Keegan:

Many of the same considerations apply in Dublin city. We very much welcome the establishment of the Land Development Agency because we recognise that there are substantial lands in public ownership. The Senator referred to Irish Rail. Dublin Bus is another big landowner, as is the HSE. There is certainly scope for those lands to be used more efficiently and some to be released for housing. That would require an agency with significant capital resources. We have engaged extensively with the LDA on particular sites.

The city council has limited land resources in direct ownership. As outlined in our statement, the bulk of that land will be used to provide social housing, which is our primary obligation. We are making land available for affordable housing schemes. The challenge is that if we were to seek to recover the cost of that land, even where we are not proposing to make any charge for it, it would be difficult to produce affordable units because there are constraints on some of the sites in terms of the cost of building generally. Although we can guarantee we can deliver units below market price, that might not match people's expectations in terms of affordability.