Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank colleagues for tabling the amendments. On a general point, it is important to remember that the vast majority of both social and affordable homes will continue to be delivered by local authorities. That is why we are tooling them up to do that. That is why we gave them the largest housing budget in the history of the State. We will continue to drive that on by giving them additional resources, which I announced last week, around the project management area, quantity surveying experience and beefing up their housing delivery teams. The LDA will deliver in excess of that. It will supplement, not supplant. We must be clear on that and reinforce it.

There is no question that a big bad commercial entity is going to come in and gobble up council land that has been identified for housing. That is not the case at all. If anything, the Government is trying to get councils to deliver that more quickly. I brought in the single-stage approval process to be able to push that on. We are looking to amend that further to get councils back doing what they were good at. They have started to do that, even leaving Covid aside, by building their own developments. They will deliver direct-build affordable housing as well. Members have seen many of the sites I visited with Government colleagues recently. That is the context of this debate.

We are looking here at the instances in which it would be appropriate for the LDA to develop that land. We have seen in Shanganagh Castle, for argument's sake, that is can be done in partnership with the local authority. That will happen with the LDA on some of the larger sites when cost rental and other housing is being delivered. I have seen that happen. I wanted to make those general points first before dealing with the amendments because they are relevant to what the LDA is about. Some previous amendments at this committee were proposed because people did not want the LDA to be involved in residential development at all, which is baffling. If we have State-owned land that is non-local authority land, which is the bulk of what the LDA is going to work with, this Government and I want to see those lands put to productive use to deliver affordable housing, social housing and cost-rental housing for people at scale. We must do this. We all know of sites throughout the country, for example in our regional cities, that have been sat on by State bodies and have not been used. In some instances, council sites that have been identified for housing have been run into the ground for 20 years because of indeterminate arguments, going back and forth. We are in the middle of a housing crisis, which means we must deliver more homes. We must do things differently to make sure we get that supply up.

In relation to the specific amendments before the committee, Deputy Duncan Smith is not here to move amendment No. 185.

I cannot accept amendments Nos. 186 and 187 because they seek to provide in section 55 that the LDA would require the consent of the Oireachtas to dispose of land rather than by ministerial consent, as is currently drafted. It is not appropriate that the Oireachtas would replace the obligations of Ministers in this provision. I do not think any future Minister would agree with this. We can imagine the potential additional delays in getting homes developed. We have seen that at local authority level. The last thing I want is to see that happening with a new agency. The Minister with responsibility for housing and the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform will be the shareholders of the LDA. There is no provision for any other shareholder. It is wholly appropriate that the Ministers, as shareholders and as Ministers of the Government, rather than the Oireachtas, would have to consent to the disposal of land by a commercial State body. The ministerial consent requirements are consistent with the existing procedures under Department of Public Expenditure and Reform circulars for the disposal of State assists. They are consistent with all other State agencies, as well as the ministerial consent which is required under the State Property Act.

Amendment No. 187 seeks to introduce a further amendment to section 55. It proposes that land which was previously acquired from a local authority and is being disposed of by the LDA "shall be offered for purchase to the local authority at the prevailing market price or the price paid to the local authority at original acquisition, whichever is the lower". I cannot accept this amendment because it does not serve any purpose, in that a local authority would offer land for sale to the LDA after it had already decided to dispose of the land. The LDA will only acquire such land where it considers the land is suitable for development under the legislation. I do not envisage a scenario where a local authority would want to have first refusal to purchase back land it had decided to dispose of. If one were to think about it this way, we have ensured through this Bill that other State agencies will have to offer land to the LDA first. That is the position in relation to disposal of lands.

Amendments Nos. 188 and 189, as tabled by Deputies McAuliffe and Higgins, seek to amend section 56, which relates to arrangements regarding the disposal of land by a local authority to the LDA, to provide that it will only apply to land zoned for housing. Amendment No. 189 looks at larger urban areas. I am giving these amendments close consideration. At this stage, I am not in a position to accept them but I am looking at whether section 183 of the 2001 Act may only apply if it is land that is not designated or zoned for housing. It would apply in that instance. I see this as an extremely rare scenario. Land zoned for housing that has not been used by a local authority - we do not envisage that being the case – would not be subject to section 183. I will work through some of these suggestions, taking account of the feedback received from Opposition and Government Deputies, and indeed our colleagues in local government, to see whether we can fine-tune this some more.

There is a very good reason for this. Members of the Oireachtas, in opposition or in government, cannot continue to countenance the adding of further delay upon delay on specific sites that are there. We must do things differently to deliver at least 33,000 homes a year, both public and private, which is what the ESRI based its research that I commissioned on. That is what we must achieve, but we are way off that figure. That is why we need the LDA to develop and manage State-owned land that is not being used productively. I reiterate that the local authorities will still be the main deliverer and provider of social and affordable housing, so much so that I gave approval last week for local authorities to acquire more lands. I changed the way the recoupment of costs for land purchased by local authorities is done. I held four housing summits last week with all chief executive officers across the country. I advised them and issued a letter in that regard. They are aware that when local authorities are short on land banks, which many of them are, and after the next few years they will be short because of what they are doing, they are to get back out and acquire land. We need that. I asking them to acquire land in order that they can build public homes on public land and build affordable homes on affordable land. If we say to local authorities that we want them to buy more land, and the Government gives them the funds to do that and asks them to do it, as sure as hell they are not going to be taking it away on the other side. We want the LDA to develop and provide homes on land that has not been used productively. I wanted to give this context because it is important. There are aspects of this that I am looking at and will come back to on Report Stage.