Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

On the landbank issue, we have an audit under way not only of local authority lands, but of all State-owned lands whether in semi-State companies, State agencies or, indeed, local authorities. We need to get that full picture. I hope that we will then make decisions to transfer lands between agencies, in particular for some of the new social housing projects. Part of our rental strategy next week, if it is approved by Government, will involve a much more proactive use of publicly-owned landbanks with a view to creating mixed-tenure developments sooner rather than later and to use the leverage local authorities have because of the landbanks they own. Many local authorities have a great deal of land available to them to do that. In terms of when the rental strategy will be launched, I hope to get approval from the Government next Tuesday. We will publish it immediately after that.

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