Ciarán Cuffe (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party)

I propose to share time with Deputies Catherine Murphy and McGrath.

It is not often I commend Fianna Fáil, but I praised the former Minister for the Environment and Local Government, Deputy Noel Dempsey, when he introduced the Planning and Development Act 2000 because it was both radical and focused. It proposed that developers of land for housing should do one of three things, namely, make homes, houses or apartments available or sites or land available to local authorities. Yet that brave legislation was filleted the moment the former Minister for the Environment and Local Government, Deputy Cullen, came into office. I firmly believe Deputy Cullen looked the developers in the eye and blinked, because he filleted that legislation.

He introduced two opt-out clauses, to give cash to the local authority or to provide sites elsewhere. That was a retrograde step which is fomenting ghettoisation in housing policy. The one thing we should be doing in an ever-changing Ireland is trying to reduce ghettoisation. We see the Minister of State with responsibility for housing trumpeting the fact he is selling off land and getting sites elsewhere, under the affordable homes initiative. He is selling lands in Dublin 4 and 2 and providing lands somewhere on the periphery of the capital. I do not believe that is a good policy. What he should be doing is counteracting ghettoisation. He should be providing housing units, whether in Nutley Lane, Dublin 4 or beside the canal in Dublin 2. The Minister of State has a great opportunity to reduce ghettoisation and he is not doing enough about it, given the powers he has. The changes which the former Minister for the Environment and Local Government, Deputy Cullen, introduced were a retrograde step in housing policy, because he let developers off the hook by allowing them to provide cash or sites elsewhere, which add to ghettoisation. As regards the financial contributions, I do not believe many local authorities around the country have used that provision sufficiently.

The Minister of State needs to provide local authorities with the resources to track down the developers. Developers will use every trick in the book to try and wriggle their way out and a very smart law agent is required as well as good people in middle management in local authorities to get Part V delivered on. Local authorities, including in my constituency in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown, have lost out on potential contributions by not using the provisions of Part V to the best of their ability. It is no good the Minister of State shedding crocodile tears on the subject. He should be ensuring he is delivering on a commitment to provide affordable homes. In Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown under the 1999 scheme, one unit has been built so far this year according to the figures I have. Under Part V, so far this year 11 units have been built, not something to set the crowds jumping for joy, and under the affordable homes initiative nothing has been built to date. When one tots up everything that has been built in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown under the 1999 scheme, Part V and the affordable housing initiative, it does not amount to 150 housing units.

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