Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 23 January 2024

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government

Update on Affordable Homes, Public Lands, Strategic Planning and Projects: Land Development Agency

Mr. John Coleman:

For sure, it will depend on the next Government, and our shareholders of the day will have a significant input into our strategy. However, we would like to think we have a very sustainable strategy that is going to be attractive and acceptable across the political spectrum, regardless of who the Minister is. Broadly speaking on what that strategy looks like, yes, it can take years for a scheme to come through and for it to start yielding. We are achieving a lot of delivery already through Project Tosaigh but we want the direct delivery side of the house, where we have full control over the land that we source, bring it through planning, look after design and specification ourselves and can deliver ourselves. We want to build that side of the business very significantly. Our ambition is to bring that up to the level of in and around 2,000 homes per annum in direct delivery. It will start exceeding what we are doing on Project Tosaigh and will give us a lot more options going forward. Broadly speaking, that is the strategy. We will be updating that annually with the shareholders. We have a rolling five-year business plan that we work on with them every year. Broadly speaking, our strategy is to ramp up the direct delivery, and eventually we think that will eclipse the delivery through Project Tosaigh.