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

In our case we are saying two years. I think that sort of standard, with the possibility of an extension, gives the option for the period ending up being ten years.

This matter does not just concern residential development. Perhaps the Minister can answer my query about Cherrywood town centre. He should be aware of it and I have only just become aware of it. I have heard word from officials and local residents about the developer of Cherrywood town centre, around which there is a huge residential development that is all ready and people have moved in and it was premised on there being a town centre with community and retail facilities, etc. I have heard from both officials and locals that the developers have now decided that it is not going to be financially viable for them to build the town centre, which defeats the whole purpose. The idea behind Cherrywood was that it would be sustainable, people could walk everywhere and everything would be in the development. The idea was to have a big residential development, which is effectively a small new city, and that all of the facilities would be there. Now, the developer has signalled that they are not going to build. I suspect that they are trying to put the Government over a barrel to see what other concessions they can wangle out of a Government that has already put in a lot of money, in terms of infrastructure, parks, funding from the local infrastructure housing activation fund, LIHAF, which is not on and we need measures to deal with that as well.

While we might not have all the answers in these amendments, we are signalling that something serious must be done. The severity of the crisis is so bad that speculation must be stamped out. Blackmail, if that is what is happening in certain circumstances-----