Shane Cassells (Meath West, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Chair. I welcome Mr. John McCarthy and his staff. Mr. McCarthy covered a huge amount in his opening statement. He began by talking about housing so I will start there as well if that is okay. Chapter 5 of the Comptroller and Auditor General's 2015 report relates to progress on land aggregation. In layman's terms, it sets out the progress that is being made with the construction of homes on 73 sites, across 610 acres, that are now in the ownership of the State centrally as opposed to through the local authority system. This mini-NAMA scheme is positive because it gets bad land deals off the books of local councils.

A landbank of 28 acres in the Farganstown area of Navan in my own county of Meath, which had been bought for €22 million, did not make it into the scheme. Meath County Council is now paying interest and principal repayments of €500,000 a year to try to service that debt. The 28-acre site in question is just lying there with no movement on the social housing for which it was purchased. The council could be spending €500,000 a year on front-line services, but instead it has to service its debt in respect of this landbank.

It is positive that 73 sites across Ireland have made it into the scheme. It is pointed out in the Comptroller and Auditor General's report that as of July 2016, no progress had been made with the development of residential housing sites on 84% of the land acquired under the scheme. In July 2016, there was inaction on 84% of landbanks under a scheme that stopped taking in landbanks in December 2013. Progress is being made with 12 of the 73 sites that are involved in this scheme. Some 185 units on seven sites have been approved and a further 180 units on five sites are in train. How many other specific sites will see ground broken in 2017 on foot of the site visits conducted by departmental officials in 2015 and 2016? I do not need to tell Mr. McCarthy that this is the biggest issue that arises at the Joint Committee on Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government. Even though the housing waiting list is the biggest thing that occupies public discourse, there is no movement on 610 acres of land that has been identified for housing. How many plans are in place to make progress with these lands? How quickly will these developments happen? The narrative we hear over and again from county councils is that it is frustrating to make progress with schemes from concept to design to implementation. I ask Mr. McCarthy to spell out to me, as succinctly as possible, how many of these sites will see progress in the coming year.