Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The local authority in Laois is developing some cost-rental and affordable homes. They are delivering a very small number, but it is a start, which is good. Obviously, we wish the scheme were different, but we have to accept that the policy is where it is.

In terms of the land aggregation scheme, which was a version of NAMA for local authorities, when the financial crash came, many of the local authorities had tracts of land on their books that they had bought to develop housing on.

I remember their transfer to the land aggregation scheme, LAGS, being passed in the council chamber. It was a way to take the debt from the financing away from the local authorities because nothing was going to happen with the land. Because of the financial crash, local authorities were in the same situation as others in the wider economy. The LAGS was set up. There is a large number of sites. We dealt with that and included some of the information we got from a meeting with the LAGS in a report we did the other day on housing supply. Approximately half of those sites have not been developed and nothing is happening. There are some in Laois. Have there been any discussions with the local authorities, now that those lands are back with them, or with the LAGS? Perhaps Ms Behan would come in on that question.