Verona Murphy (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

On 25 April, a scheme was announced where the Department is to spend three quarters of a billion euro it believes will commence the building of 6,000 apartments where there are grants of planning but they have not commenced. I want to see the cost-benefit analysis.

Let me give Mr. Doyle my cost-benefit analysis. If the Department was to do what I have been saying for three years, as well as everybody who understands just how bad our planning policy is and where it is causing the hiatus in building, the cost-benefit analysis on reducing densities from 50 dwellings per hectare for which the Department is insisting, not only in Dublin and but in towns around the country, will see the Department having to purchase 264 acres on which to develop 6,000 apartments at a cost in most cases of €20 million per acre and upwards. That comes to €6 billion. Should the Department lower the densities to 30 dwellings per hectare and go around the country and purchase development land, in Wexford, for example, at a cost of approximately €200,000 an acre, for €50 million the Department could probably service the required extra. It would take 440 acres to build 6,000 houses and the Department could still do it for little or nothing in comparison with the taxpayers' money the Department will spend.

I cannot see where we are looking for value for money here. I want to see the cost-benefit analysis that supports the proposal. It was announced in April. Where is the detail? It is not available. It is not available from the LDA. It is not on a Government website.