Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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I apologise in advance because I must attend the Dáil Chamber for a debate shortly. I am delighted that reference was made to the Housing Infrastructure Services Company, HISCo because they do not get talked about enough. When the full final analysis is done of local infrastructure housing activation fund, LIHAF and the Housing Infrastructure Services Company, HISCo, it would be very good example of how not to do something, and how to do something. Most LIHAF-funded projects have been enormously delayed and some have ended up in legal challenges. I am not saying that the fund has not helped in some individual developments but it was a very poorly designed and poorly implemented scheme. This is a view both of local authorities and private developers, as well as some of us in this committee. It is interesting that HISCo was an initiative of a local authority that recognised, in conversation with developers in Cork county, there was an infrastructure blockage. They came up with a really smart and sensible solution. It is not money for free as there is a commercial return and developer has to pay. It is done in a very smart and nimble way. I do not understand why that very good initiative, which is now on a number of sites across the country, is not somehow mainstream so that HISCo either becomes a much bigger vehicle or there are regional hubs that are supporting infrastructure developments. It would solve a lot of those initial problems.

With regard to the more fundamental point that has been raised about the funding, the problem is that if we get the development contributions and the water connection charges, we either have to move towards direct State subvention of the infrastructure or the site value tax, a proposal that the Green Party supported. There must be some mechanism to do it. Irish Water does not have the revenue today to invest in that infrastructure and, therefore, there would have to be some recognition. I do believe that a HISCo type model could be a really interesting example. I am saying this more with respect to our own recommendations. For example, there could be an arrangement around water infrastructure. Instead of the developer with the first parcel of land having to front up with the capital and then maybe get rebate over ten years, HISCo could finance it and then there would be a commercial return for its investment at the low rate they currently get paid, as other parcels of land are freed up. That could actually work. It is working with roads at the moment and it is working with bridges. It could also work with water infrastructure. Again, HISCo do not do the work; HISCo employs contractors. Where Irish Water has contractors that are registered to provide the quality of work that Irish Water wants, HISCo could use those same contractors. I believe that would be a nimble enough response to it.

The question I want to ask may be a question for Mr. Fitzpatrick. When we look at strategic development zone developments, SDZs, all of the landowners are brought together and there is a collaborative agreement for how the cost or the burden of infrastructure amenity space is fairly shared across the landowners, even when their own bit of land does not actually require the relevant portion of infrastructure.

In the context of the planning Bill or the urban development zone legislation, and going back to Mr. O'Connell's point around the cities or the agglomerations, is there an argument to say that where there are locations in specific areas of particularly long-term strategic importance for residential commercial and amenity, there is a similar mechanism whereby through our planning system landowners are brought together along with utilities to collectively forward plan and forward fund the infrastructure in the same way as an SDZ but without actually having the SDZ? Is there a nimble mechanism that could provide for that? I like the idea of those implementation groups that were talked about but for it to work it must have some kind of concrete purpose rather than just being a talking shop. Will the witnesses talk about the good and the bad practice that their own organisations see, if we wanted to focus on forward planning and implementation stage, including the funding of the infrastructure. I invite them to say more than just a city implementation group for a strategic development zone. From their experience, are there things they believe already work that could be expanded or elaborated on further? If they have the data on delayed connections, either here or to be shared with us at a later stage, that would be great.