Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for the question. Project Ireland 2040 signals a significant policy shift towards securing more compact and sustainable urban and rural development, which requires significantly more effective land management in key development areas. Against that background, it is proposed to establish a national regeneration and development agency to assist in ensuring a more effective approach to strategic land management, particularly in terms of publicly owned land. The agency will act as a national centre of expertise, working with and supporting local authorities, public bodies and other interests to harness public lands as catalysts to stimulate regeneration and wider investment and to achieve compact, sustainable growth with a particular emphasis on complex regeneration projects.

The detailed arrangements on the establishment, staffing and powers of the agency will be finalised as quickly as possible. At this point, however, I envisage that the agency will be tightly focused and will seek to work primarily through the statutory powers of the stakeholders it is being established to assist, such as the local authorities that already have extensive powers to acquire lands for development, compulsorily if necessary, and to deliver infrastructure. Whether the agency requires further powers will be considered by Government in the context of its consideration of the detailed arrangements for the agency's establishment.

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