Mr. Frank Curran:

The role of the LDA is to undertake strategic land assembly and to utilise fully State lands to build affordable housing and sustainable communities. Local authorities will co-operate with the LDA in delivering social, affordable and cost rental housing. We already have the example of the scheme in Shanganagh, where the local authority in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown co-operated fully with the LDA and significant delivery of housing is now under way. The LDA has a number of schemes coming through around the country, with some of those deriving from the land aggregation scheme, such as those in Naas and Lusk and also a scheme now coming through in Cork. The LDA has a very ambitious programme for delivering social, affordable and cost rental housing in the next year. We welcome that.

Going back to the land aggregation scheme, we are looking at all the lands in the landbank, that is, all the lands owned by the local authorities. We are looking at the services available for those lands. We are examining what land can be made available for social and affordable housing. We are also in discussions with the Department and the Housing Finance Agency concerning land which is unlikely to be delivered in the next number of years and how to deal with existing loans.

Turning to the Senator's comment regarding our ambition, I think we are very ambitious. As I said, there is a target of 10,000 units for social housing for each of the next five years, in addition to 2,500 leases. This proposed affordable housing Bill will give us clarity and certainty in this context. We also have the serviced site fund in operation and we are seeking to expand it. We are actively looking for land on which to deliver affordable and cost rental housing. There is considerable ambition on the part of the sector. We will examine issues such as the staff complement in each local authority, the skill set we will require and the recruitment of the staff we need to be in a position to deliver on this ambitious programme.