Mary Seery Kearney (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will share time with Deputy Higgins. I thank the witnesses for their opening remarks. I am, naturally, very much supportive of the objectives of the strategic housing developments, SHDs, but I have concerns in two areas which I would like the delegations to address. At times, decisions have been made with the opposition of the local authority having been well flagged and signalled as part of the process and deep reservations on the part of the local authority where its development plan appears to have been sidetracked. The particular project I am thinking of is still live in its appeal and before the courts, so I cannot get into it, but there have been instances where local authority has been very definite that the housing density has been far too great and not appropriate for the site it is on. I would like to hear how that is overcome, how the interplay of the commentary from the local authority and local representatives feeding into that informs the decision-making process.

My second point is with regard to clustering and the view that the decisions appear to be made in a silo. I accept that the board will have a particular application in front of it, but it is a silo where, taking the likes of Cork Street, it now has a proliferation of student accommodation, with the fabric of the community in that area being undermined, and in fact Dublin 8 as a consequence. On the ratio of affordable and social housing to student accommodation, how are those decisions arrived at? How are those evaluated? They do not appear to look at the objectives in an entire community and its sustainability as opposed to something being a project on its own, with the decision being made on the merits of the project on its own and without giving due regard to the requirements of the community and the sustainability of actual community living and community life.