Dr. Larry O'Connell:

We also thank the Chairman and members of the committee for this invitation to speak on NESC's work on urban development land, housing and infrastructure. Mr. Noel Cahill and I are members of the secretariat in NESC and are attending in that capacity. NESC is a Government body which advises the Taoiseach on strategic policy issues. The members are appointed by the Taoiseach and represent business, employers, trade unions, agricultural and farming organisations, community and voluntary organisations, and environmental organisations; as well as heads of various Departments and independent experts. Its composition means it plays an important and unique role in bringing different perspectives from civil society together with Government.

The NESC report, Urban Development Land, Housing and Infrastructure published in 2018, highlighted that the availability of land for housing in appropriate locations, which is consistent with the provision of affordable housing, remains an unresolved policy issue in Ireland. The supply conditions of land help to create a speculative land and housing market. The supply of land is uncertain, patchy and costly. This tends to make the housing system risky, unstable and unaffordable.

Based on an examination of countries with successful experience of housing, NESC found effective solutions involve a combination of three things. The first is active land management and urban development by highly skilled and respected public authorities. The second is housing policies focused on achieving permanent affordability. The third is a range of mechanisms to use the value added to land by investment to help fund necessary infrastructure.

For those reasons NESC recommended the creation of a public body with a strong developmental mandate, political authorisation and executive capacity to drive sustainable urban development. As such, the council views the establishment of the Land Development Agency as potentially a very significant and important way of addressing critical issues regarding land supply and housing and the related challenge of supporting increased investment in infrastructure. It is a means of putting public land in the hands of actors who will develop it in a timely and appropriate manner, rather than seeking to maximise State revenue by selling it outright, without regard to when and how the land will be developed.

It also an important step in the right direction in terms of creating the conditions and institutions for more active land management and new kinds of relationships between public authorities and private holders of development land. In the remaining part of the opening statement, my colleague, Mr. Noel Cahill, will highlight a number of lessons which we believe are relevant to the committee's deliberations in relation to the legislation governing the LDA.