Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Deputies for their contributions.

No one is talking about offering unaffordable, open market sales at all. Deputy Ó Broin knows that.

I intend to align the provisions of Part 9 more closely to the provisions of the recently published Affordable Housing Bill. This significant affordable housing legislation is in the Seanad and will, hopefully, pass Committee Stage there tomorrow. I assume the Deputies who have tabled these amendments will support that Bill.

Deputy Higgins is correct about the mix. In major urban areas, particularly in Dublin, Cork and Galway, most of the LDA sites would be 90% affordable, 10% social or a mix of that, meaning 100%. We need to allow latitude in other parts of the country and for specific sites to allow the choice to be given within those areas. We should not have a continuing debate about restricting tenure type. We only have to look at what happened earlier this week with a good proposal for 1,200 homes in Fingal, a mix of public and private with 238 affordable purchase, 238 social, 150 cost-rental plus some private. In some areas, it will make sense to have that mix of affordable, social and public, depending on the area. The Deputies know that too. Those who tabled these amendments opposed that particular development.

In general terms, we need to allow the LDA to operate within certain parameters. I will set out the areas around affordability in more detail through the Affordable Housing Bill. It is clear that there will be no instance whereby the agency will offer unaffordable, open-market sales as Deputy Ó Broin has put forward. This legislation will endure, hopefully, for years and the agency will endure for decades. We need this agency. It will not be, as Deputy Ó Broin put it, a land management quango. On Tuesday, he said he wanted an agency that does not plan for or build anything. His would be an agency that would simply put together a summary of State lands and then farm it out to different public bodies that he thinks will deliver those homes. We have gone past that.

In the Government's view, the LDA will be used to provide an additional dividend to our local authorities. It is on top of what they will be doing. This means it will be more social and more affordable houses. Activating State lands will provide additional social and additional affordable homes to what our local authorities will be doing. Deputies should not forget this. This is not a case of instead of but on top of. That will help us drive the type of numbers we need to be able to continue to build more public homes and to start building affordable homes at scale. That is what everyone wants. The LDA, as constructed in this legislation, will be empowered to do that. It is important that we get this legislation passed to capitalise this agency and have it moving with the development of social and affordable homes in addition to what our local authorities will be doing.

These amendments seek to add references to social and affordable in the Bill. As I said earlier, there are sufficient references in it. I do not propose to accept the amendments.

With regard to the amendment seeking to remove the reference to address deficiencies in the housing market, it is clear such deficiencies exist. That is why the LDA will play an important role in addressing this.

Additionally, I do not propose to accept amendments seeking to delete or amend the references to the role of the LDA relating to master planning, design and project management, as well as its key role as a development agency in land assembly. That would fundamentally change the agency.

Going back to the Deputy Boyd Barrett's point about the agency not being publicly owned, it absolutely is a publicly owned entity. The shareholders will be the Ministers for Housing, Local Government and Heritage and Public Expenditure and Reform.

I do not intend to accept the amendment to insert the proposed definition for public housing. This term is not used in this Bill and there are sufficient references to affordable and social housing. The whole purpose of this is that the LDA will play an important role in delivering affordable and social housing, including providing services to local authorities and assisting them in developing some of their own housing schemes.