Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 18 October 2016

Public Accounts Committee

Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed)

10:00 am

Mr. Willie Soffe:

Yes, it had nothing to do with industrial zoning. It was important in order that the Northern Ireland authority could see the whole picture. At one of our meetings Mr. Rowntree drew our attention to the fact that because of the failure of voluntary housing bodies to meet their targets, a sizeable sum would be returned to the UK Exchequer. There was a need to look at housing in a general sense and zoning for housing in Northern Ireland in order that plans and overall strategies could be developed. We did the same. We worked here on a GIS project with the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government to put zoned land of all kinds, not just residential, in this country online. The Deputy can go on it and it will tell him the zoning attached to every piece of land and what is included in the local development plan and so on.