Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

Before I go to those questions, I should make it clear that there are no gifts involved in this initiative. It is a commercial deal, a swap, with costs being put on the sale. The details have been worked out and I will go through some of them. There is nothing for nothing for anyone. Dublin City Council managed the project and professional assessments were made of what the site could be used for. The advantage in terms of the Harcourt Street analysis is that planning would be forthcoming for 30 apartments, with a commercial use for another part of the site. If this were to be done in the inner city as a private project, given all the time it takes to do these things, it would take four years at best. The largest developers will say that it takes between four and six years from the time they purchase a site to getting a likely return on some of it. I have had endless information from all the local authorities which confirms that this is case. I do not quite understand why it takes so long, but apparently that is how it works.

In this case, Durkan, the developer, won the contract out of 16 tenders. There was no shortage of applicants. Eventually there was a shortlist of three and Durkan ultimately won. It will have 140 of these units in south Dublin ready by Christmas and people will be occupying them, as well as another 52 units. For the swap of that site we will build 30 units or perhaps more. By early in the New Year, within nine months of the deal being completed a month ago, we will get 192 units. In all of this Dublin City Council is doing the project management. There is no point in another group doing it. It is best to do it that way. I can give the Deputy some details about the initiative itself. The initiative comes about from the experience gained in the past few years regarding the agreement on the 10,000 sites. We were able to get the sites but it was an exceedingly slow process to get on with matters.

The affordable homes partnership will be established as a corporate body under the Local Government Services (Corporate Bodies) Act 1971. The reason is that it can be done immediately and we can get ahead forthwith. The establishment order for the partnership will be made shortly by the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government and will be circulated in the Houses of the Oireachtas. It will provide a statutory structure around which a board and support staff may be put in place immediately. The affordable homes partnership will be subject to public service corporate governance disciplines, including audit and appropriate ethics requirements. Initially the board will consist of seven members, the managers of the four Dublin local authorities and three independent members. Mr. Des Geraghty has been invited to serve as chairman and has agreed. The names of the other independent members will be announced, I hope, within the next week.

The partnership will have an experienced chief executive and a small dedicated staff comprising personnel with a proven track record, principally on secondment in the early stages. It is a question of initially seconding people with proven experience in this area, rather than going through a long interviewing process. The chief executive will be an ex officio member of the board. Arrangements have already been put in place for the appointment of the chief executive and other staff.

The affordable homes partnership will have responsibility for a range of tasks, mainly for a short-term period of three years, at least initially. It will drive and co-ordinate the delivery of all affordable housing development, that is, quality houses at a reasonable cost in the greater Dublin area. In conducting its role the partnership will pay particular attention to increasing supply within the Dublin metropolitan area, with regard to the local authorities' five year action plans on sociable and affordable housing. The partnership will co-ordinate approaches as regards the development of supporting infrastructure, such as transport, water, education and other community facilities. The approach will be to prioritise projects within existing capital envelopes in a concerted and co-ordinated way to facilitate the necessary affordable housing.

It is intended that the partnership will take responsibility, as far as practicable, for the present affordable housing system — that is the 10,000 sites on State lands in the greater Dublin area, where it is necessary that this initiative should lead to their accelerated development. The partnership will be tasked to undertake a series of measures to bring additional land for housing development, including the consideration of proposals from builders, developers or local authorities for the utilisation of lands not currently zoned for housing but which may be suitable for development.

The partnership will also publicise and communicate with the public in general on affordable housing availability and development. In fulfilling its communication role, it will work with local authorities to simplify contact by members of the public on the choices available and the tailoring of individual requirements. There are now about eight or nine different schemes.

Regarding the priority of increasing affordable housing in the Dublin metropolitan area, the partnership will be mandated to ensure that the annual target of at least 16,000 units identified for Dublin is met. As a particular requirement this will ensure that the response is aimed at addressing issues of affordability that remain a significant source of concern. In this area, the growth of commuter-based development in Dublin and surrounding counties has resulted in significant human, social and economic costs due to the deficit in affordable housing in the capital. Therefore it is important that supply contains a sufficient component within the affordable category, whether as private housing or under the affordable schemes.

In order to increase the supply of land available for affordable housing in the greater Dublin area, the affordable homes partnership, as one of its earliest tasks, will call for proposals from the holders of land that may be suitable for housing development, including land that is not currently zoned for housing, regardless of its ownership. In order to assist the progressing of development of suitable lands using existing planning mechanisms, the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government intends to issue policy guidance which will reinforce the policy context in which zoning and planning decisions take account of the goal of providing additional housing in the affordable category.

The partnership will undertake an audit of their lands with local authorities with a view to the most active use of such holdings for affordable housing schemes. The principle to be used in this initiative is that the land should be located in an area where there is a need for such housing, to ensure that suitable development land is adjacent to existing developments and capable of integration with such settlements — community facilities, schools, public transport — and the land, ideally, should be capable of being built upon within a short timescale. It should be serviced or serviceable.

Value for money will be based on the final unit costs of housing, including any servicing, having regard to specified quality and timescales of delivery. I have quite an amount of detail on swaps. Perhaps I will send Deputy Rabbitte a memorandum on that area. On the basis that everyone believes the Harcourt Street project is a great success — I hope it will be and something does not happen — a second phase will begin on Harcourt Street because only a small area was tested in the pilot project.

Land at Gormanston, Model Farm in Cork, Athenry, Magee Barracks and Backweston is also being put on the market to see what it can generate. Most of these sites are not serviceable and it will take a considerable amount of time for the State to make them serviceable. In this way, it is hoped we will get serviceable sites either built or about to be built, rather than stretching out the process until 2010 which would be the case without a swap. We will probably not get the same interest — I hope we do — or value as for the Harcourt Street site where we are getting 190 apartments for a relatively small site. At least the other sites would speed up the process but, again, it would have to be project managed by local authorities, instead of the State also getting involved. It is worth making this effort to have the land developed because the other way is painfully slow.

The issue which interests me in swapping sites and the reason I went with this approach, although I can always see the dangers in these kinds of things, is that the affordable selling price for the units after the swap involving the Harcourt Street site will be between €150,000 and €170,000, an average discount of 33% of the market value. For the citizen, our constituents, this is a considerable reduction. In this case, the individual on the list is given good quality housing in a good area for a very attractive price.

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