Mr. Paul Hogan:

It is not really possible for us to say how many affordable homes have been lost as a result of this. Anybody can make a planning application at any time and it is really at the discretion of the person who was granted planning permission whether to develop. That is the normal course of events. There is the question of how long developers have to implement planning permission that has been granted. Generally speaking, that is five years, unless there is a specific request for a longer period that is granted. I suggest that the vast majority of the strategic housing developments that have permission granted and are not yet implemented would have five years to do that, starting from the point of initial granting of such developments in 2017. Some may have more. They will run for the next few years.

As I have mentioned, the intent is to implement fairly soon a replacement for the vacant site levy in terms of a development land tax on unimplemented development sites after a certain period. I am not saying this for sure because the matter has not been finally determined but it is possible that some of those sites may well be liable for such a tax in the very near future.

With regard to Housing for All, I only mention it because it is relevant to the particular question and that aspect of the proposed Bill. I do not propose to get into the wider aspects of it in this discussion.