Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 3 June 2021

Select Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government

Land Development Agency Bill 2021: Committee Stage (Resumed)

Photo of Richard Boyd BarrettRichard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

In a similar vein, our amendment proposes that the LDA be a public agency rather than a commercial entity, as envisaged in the Government's Bill. It is noteworthy that the Economic and Social Research Institute, ESRI, appears to have moved over to the socialist position on housing policy, on which I commend it. It may give the Government pause for thought on its misguided approach to resolving the housing crisis and its determination, through the Land Development Agency Bill, to involve private investment vehicles in trying to resolve the housing crisis. The ESRI, it would appear, differs with the Government and concurs with the views of the left in that what we should do is have direct State investment. It is suggesting we should be borrowing between €4 billion and €7 billion per year to invest directly in delivering public and affordable housing. It is suggesting we could develop 18,000 public and affordable units per year, a figure remarkably similar to the one in People Before Profit's proposal on dealing with the housing crisis.

The Government, in responding to us and others on the left with a similar policy, such as Sinn Féin and the Social Democrats, regularly dismisses it as fanciful. It now seems the ESRI does not think it is fanciful. The ESRI points out, as we have repeatedly done over many years, that the net cost to the State would reduce over time because the State could progressively reduce the huge waste of money being spent on housing assistance payments, HAP, and leasing arrangements if it directly invested, upfront and big time, in its own public and affordable housing stock. Over time, it would reduce the huge outgoings on HAP and leasing payments.

It is in that context that we are saying the LDA should be a purely public agency. It should not be a commercial agency in any shape or form and should not involve private finance or capital. There is no need to do that, as the ESRI points out. If the Government has not listened to us in recent years, it may listen to the ESRI which is echoing our view that what we need is for the State to directly provide its own public and affordable housing building programme. It also needs to scale up and double the current level of investment, as the ESRI suggests. It is in that context that it makes sense for the agency to be purely public.

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