Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

It is interesting, and as we go through these amendments, we have to make some progress in the debate. Some of the discussion we have had for the past ten minutes relates to developments that are up and running or are not based on the legislation which we are passing here. There is an assumption that the way things have been done for the past ten years is the way the Minister intends to do things going forward.

If we look at the wording of the legislation itself, it does not relate to any of the things the two previous speakers have spoken about. There is an assumption they will be in all cases private, for-profit and specific purpose vehicles. I am not sure how one could deliver affordability with that and therefore I am not sure how a Government would put that forward as a proposal. It is not the intention of the Government that we would squeeze profit out of the land because then we would not be able to deliver affordable homes for the people who we want to deliver them for. It is a bizarre concept that a Government whose job it is to deliver affordable housing for people would in some way side with private, for-profit international finance rather than the people they are elected by. I appreciate that suits the narrative of our two previous speakers, but if we look to the actual wording of the Bill in front of us. it would seek to do something fundamental. It would seek essentially to establish a quango that pulls together banks of land and acts as some sort of middleman between that land being developed and local authorities that do not have the capacity to develop it.

Perhaps those in Opposition do not realise it but we have a real capacity issue. We need all cylinders firing and that includes the LDA, the local authorities and the approved housing bodies all in operation. I just cannot fathom the idea of preventing the LDA from building homes.

Why would we prevent a body from developing homes when we know we need both local authorities and the LDA developing? There has been a large amount of discussions on some developments here and council decisions. Having served on a council, one only sometimes really know why a decision is made at council if one actually attended the debate.

Let us be honest, specific purpose vehicles are well used by our local authority sector. The last time Fianna Fáil was in government we built many thousands of homes in Ballymun using a specific purpose vehicle, which was Ballymun regeneration. There was no private element to that at all. For us to do what the amendment suggests would limit our ability to deliver and reduce the number of affordable homes that could be delivered. There is no reference to the make up of the designated activity company or DAC so to remove the power of anybody to use a specific purpose vehicle, when we know that they are well established, would stymie progress and delivery.