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

I thank Mr. Hogan and Ms Timmons for their responses. To reassure them, I take all of the points very seriously and I appreciate the time they have taken to consider them. I agree with them that we need an evidence base and we need to be mindful of unintended consequences, so I am not disregarding either of those points. I have read the 2012 DMK report which underpinned the review of Part V in 2013 and 2014 and I did not see any evidence in that to support the reduction. There were assumptions, assessments and opinions, and, obviously, in the following five years, it did not lead to any immediate response from the market. Of course, it was never going to lead to any immediate response from the market in terms of increasing Part V because of where the construction sector was at that stage. Nonetheless, given the fact the reduction was not evidence-based, it is reasonable for us to argue that whether it is returned to 20%, 25% or 30% is something that should be explored.

Some of the language used by Mr. Hogan and Ms Timmons is interesting. For example, Ms Timmons stated that what is proposed would "choke supply". That is a pretty significant statement. What evidence does she have that makes her believe it would choke supply? In what was probably an even more extreme comment, Mr. Hogan said it would "kill off" SDZs. Obviously, I would like to believe that and, as that is what he said at the committee, I will take it at face value. One of the big criticisms of the Docklands SDZ is that there was virtually no social or affordable housing in real terms. One of the things we have seen with Poolbeg is a real desire on the part of residents and the vast majority of the elected members of Dublin City Council to have affordability. In fact, even the Ministers - the previous incumbent, Deputy Coveney, and the current one, Deputy Eoghan Murphy - wanted to have that 30%. SDZs are of such huge importance because they are always in key locations. One of the constant challenges in those key locations is, of course, affordability, given their proximity to economic opportunities, public transport hubs and so on. It is actually because of their strategic nature that a higher percentage is needed. Again, I am willing to work with committee members to respond to that.

Our biggest challenge is the undersupply of affordable housing. All of the information we have from the Department and the local authorities is that there is not going to be a significant supply of affordable housing through the serviced sites fund or LIHAF for four to five years, and they are asking us to wait until we reach 30,000 to 35,000 total completions, and then review it. The difficulty is that, by that time, we will have produced so many unaffordable private sector units that the affordable housing crisis will have got worse or, at least, remained static. There is still a compelling argument to do this. Do I genuinely think that by introducing this we are going to delay output? I genuinely do not, and I have yet to see any evidence for it. However, if the witnesses have any evidence, I would be more than happy to consider it and to reconsider my position.