Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

What discussions, if any, is the committee having on strategic development zones? I had a briefing yesterday at Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council on the Cherrywood strategic development zone and what is, in effect, the building of a new town in south Dublin in my own constituency. This morning I was at a meeting of the Irish Glass Bottle Site Housing Action Group, which was discussing the strategic development zone on the Poolbeg Peninsula with particular reference to the Irish Glass Bottle Company site. Is the Taoiseach looking at the detail of the strategic infrastructure project areas? In particular, does the Taoiseach have a plan to ensure that, out of these very significant strategic development areas, we are going to get for the public the public and affordable housing we need to meet the disastrous housing emergency we now face? The evidence suggests we are not.

The Irish Glass Bottle Site Housing Action Group tells me that NAMA will not meet its representatives even though it has asked it to do so several times. They want to meet the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government, Deputy Simon Coveney, and they want the Irish Glass Bottle Company site handed over to Dublin City Council to ensure that we do not get a miserable 10% of so-called social housing, but rather get at least 75% public and affordable housing. Their fear is that NAMA is going to flog that site off to developers and all we will get is a miserable 10% when we are the ones who are putting in place all the infrastructure the private developers will gain from. Similarly, the local authority is looking for €100 million from the new infrastructure fund for Cherrywood so that we can get the 8,000 residential units there. Given that this was a site sold by NAMA to Hines, a US property fund, are we only going to get a miserable 10% of these 8,000 units for the public when we have paid and will pay hundreds of millions for infrastructure? They are going to make an absolute fortune.

Should the Taoiseach not insist that we get a bigger proportion than 10% of Cherrywood for public and affordable housing? That 10% is a miserable figure which means these developers are getting a free lunch. I want some commitment from the Taoiseach that they will not get a free lunch and that the public will get something back on these strategic development zones.

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