Mr. Tim Lucey:

I want to respond to two issues raised by Senator Brennan. The first is the link to the national spatial strategy, NSS. In broad terms, the concept behind this Bill is to try to facilitate a quicker supply of housing, both in the private and the public sectors, how to incentivise this and how to support infrastructure development, where required, particularly from a private sector housing point of view. Therefore, it clearly has a link to delivery of housing supply, whereas the review of the NSS is some time away. This Bill is certainly linked in this regard, in that the conditions around supply of housing will be set very much by this Bill.

Other attendees have commented on unauthorised development and enforcement. One thing of benefit, and which could be significant, is the new building control management system. In law, a person cannot occupy a house without a final certificate of completion, which, in essence, means a house cannot be sold without a certificate of completion. I suggest this is a very effective deterrent in terms of moving ahead with an authorised residential development in particular.

To be fair, Deputy Catherine Murphy picked up on a number of the issues we raised. On completion of this session, we would certainly be happy to send a note to the committee, particularly in regard to the land valuation issues we have raised, with some thoughts on the practical issues that might be of benefit to the committee in considering how those issues might be clarified.