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

I thank the witnesses for their submissions, which are helpful. I am a strong supporter of active land management and would like to see a strong, well-resourced public agency whose function is, in the first instance, to manage public lands strategically. However, I am in an increasingly uncomfortable dilemma, in that the more I read the heads of the Bill and listen to various views, the more I see that is not what we will get.

All the other stuff in this legislation undermines the part we all would like to see. I am concerned that the proposed land management functions of the agency will be very weak, particularly with the absence of compulsory purchase order, CPO, powers. While the Department has indicated that there will be amendments on Committee or Report Stage, it says they will provide for very limited CPOs for small parcels of adjoining land rather than something more significant.

My main concern, and it speaks to some of the comments today, is the commercial residential development element of this proposition. My question for everybody, and particularly for Mr. O'Connor, is: do we need to combine those two things? Would it not be better to have an active land management agency whose job is to manage public land strategically and where that land is to be used for certain purposes it would be handed over to, or the agency would engage with, local authorities, approved housing bodies or the IDA to develop it? The LDA would be about land, not residential development. It is not an exaggeration to say that if this legislation ends up in the current format, we are potentially facing a National Asset Management Agency, NAMA, mark two. When I said that in the committee two weeks ago I thought Mr. John Coleman would recoil from it, but he was kind of nodding at that point - one can look at the committee meeting recording to see it - that it is a different vehicle but is heading in that direction.

I do not wish to pick on Mr. O'Connor but the other witnesses have been very clear and I want to hear a little more about the Housing Agency's view. I know Mr. O'Connor is on the board and that puts him in a difficult position but his job is also to provide advice to the Government on housing policy. I wish to tease that out. Other witnesses should feel free to intervene but they answered many of my questions is their opening statements. First, at a time when we desperately need a large volume of social and affordable housing, and Mr. O'Connor said at the agency's annual conference last year that he did not think the political system fully understood the scale of affordable cost rental we need, is it correct to limit the LDA to a 40% quantum of social and affordable public housing or should it be bigger? Both the National Economic and Social Council, NESC, and the Economic and Social Research Institute, ESRI, said last week that it should be bigger but I wish to hear the Housing Agency's view on it.

Given that the bulk of the developments will be joint ventures where the LDA, as an independent commercial designated activities company, will be creating special purpose vehicles with other market actors, is that the best way to achieve the affordability that Mr. O'Connor wishes to see? Looking at the O'Devaney Gardens development, it is clear that the model, whatever one thinks about it in theory, will not deliver affordability. I am also concerned about, and the ICSH referred to this, the tension that inevitably will emerge between its social objectives, vague as they are in the legislation, and its commercial requirements. What happens when there are conflicts? Section 10 of the NAMA legislation said that NAMA not only had to have a commercial return, but the maximum commercial return. In this case it is different, but I am interested in Mr. O'Connor's view on how we can ensure that the need for social and affordable housing becomes the key driver. Social and affordable housing is not even referenced in the aims and objectives of the Bill. Should it be referenced in the aims and objectives?

I seek the views of all the witnesses on CPO powers. They are not provided for and, clearly, they must be. What type of CPO powers are needed?

I had not thought previously about the point made by Professor Kitchin. Where liabilities will fall if a project fails is an important point. Mr. Coleman was clear when he appeared before the committee that the LDA would be setting up special purpose vehicles. The possibility of those things ending up badly, for example, in a downturn or a hard Brexit, is not unreasonable. Do the witnesses have views on that and on how to protect ourselves from it?

To pick up on a point from Professor Kitchin, we asked the Department about the sale of shares. The officials were clear that shares could only be sold internally within the Government from one Minister to another and two Ministers would have sole ownership. Regardless of whether that is in the final Bill, Professor Kitchin highlighted the need for us to be careful that the final legislation does not allow the sale of those shares beyond the Government. That is what the current position is.

Some 60% of this housing is going to be sold at open market price. We will have the odd Shanganagh and get a little more here and there, but for this entity to remain off-balance sheet, it must be independent of the Government in its governance.

It must be a market operator and the lion's share of what it does must reflect market realities in terms of investment decisions and prices. The question I am putting to the witnesses is: "When did it become the responsibility of the State to provide open market priced housing?" All of our housing legislation is about meeting social or affordable housing need, yet the policy of the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government is actually saying that 60% of these developments should be available for the open market. How did that change in policy happen because it almost seems to have happened at a quiet policy level in the Department and it is a fundamental shift on which I would like to know the witnesses' views?

I thank the Chair for his indulgence.