Victor Boyhan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am very conscious of time so I will start off by telling Dr. O'Toole that I really welcome him. He has given us a dose of reality. I have listened to the other political groupings and their commentary and I read today's edition of The Irish Times. Yes, the heading is "ESRI claims shared equity schemes risk driving up prices" but Dr. O'Toole is right to come in and bring a dose of reality to the situation. I acknowledge his work in this area and I acknowledge the ESRI as being a very competent, able, fair and transparent organisation. I do not believe Dr. O'Toole set out to upset people but I believe he has given us a dose of reality. The article in The Irish Timesthis morning is a wake-up call for many people in this debate about affordability. Dr. O'Toole is right to talk about analysing and assessing ex antethe process relating to risk, merits and benefits. He has done a good job and has done good service to this committee. I acknowledge that because he has made an important contribution that I consider to be a commonsense injection of reality.

I have a few questions about the Housing Agency. I welcome Mr. O'Connor and congratulate him on the 50 cost-rental homes in Stepaside and the follow-on 105 social houses in partnership with Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council. This is a welcome development from which we will learn. It was very much a learning curve and we have all learned things about that. I do not want to go into that. I would touch on some things mentioned by Mr. O'Connor in his commentary, such as the serviced sites fund and the land aggregation scheme, which is one of the greatest scandals in this country in terms of how these lands were purchased, the exorbitant prices paid for them and the fact that they were offered back to the Department on a land aggregation scheme basis, the Department rejected many of these and they are still on the books of the Housing Agency and local authorities. There is enormous potential in time and there is more out there in the context of a longer-term focus.

A final issue is the LDA. I ask the witnesses to comment on the serviced sites fund, the land aggregation scheme and the LDA and how that can feed into their plans and vision in terms of affordability.

I have a question for Mr. Cahill. I was interested in his proposal regarding a vacant sale order, something I had not heard about. We do not have time to discuss it today, but if he did more work on this issue, the committee would be interested in it. I would certainly be interested in hearing more about it. Perhaps he could send the committee some details on that. It is an imaginative and progressive scheme with potential. I would like to hear if there is any additional information on that, and he might share it with the committee.