Ms Anne Colgan:

To go back to the Shanganagh experience the Senator asked about, what was in the background in all those discussions and negotiations was the fact that we had the power of disposal. It meant that if the Land Development Agency was to proceed on that site it could only do so with the agreement and authorisation of councillors. What was unique about that site was that tenure mix was key. We wanted at least a third of the 600 units on that site to be for social housing. Some 200 social units and approximately 350 cost-rental properties are going on that site together with a smaller number of 50 affordable homes to buy.

Our focus was on tenure, but also on the site's community gain in terms of community facilities and so on. It was very much around agreeing the mix. That was the purpose of the engagement as was agreeing the design, layout and so on of the site. It is almost as if councillors were part of the master-planning process in a very proactive way. Ultimately, the conditions made possible by section 183 allowed us to copperfasten the findings of the master plan on tenure so they could not be reversed. Nothing could happen, post the disposal, that would undermine the tenure mix we had already agreed. We also built in a conditionality that should the development not go ahead in a timely fashion the land would revert to the council, which is one issue we are interested in as one of our proposed amendments to this Bill.

As I said, the Central Mental Hospital is a very different situation because of the fact that it is not on council land. We do not have section 183 available to us so our engagement is on the basis of the willingness of the Land Development Agency to engage. We, as councillors, particularly as ward councillors, have fairly routinely sought the opportunity to put our points of view on what we think should be on that site to the Land Development Agency. However, we do not have the influence on that site that we had on Shanganagh because we do not have the section 183 power available to us. As the Senator said, there is significant public engagement. If one looks at the LDA website there is a lot pushback from the community. It is very important to ensure there is public engagement and not have resistance to any aspect of the proposals. I made the point that there is no mechanism that guarantees members' engagement in the context of this Bill.