Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Minister of State knows we have been strongly critical of the land initiative model being used elsewhere in the city and country. This originated at a time when capital budgets were more constrained and local authorities were desperately trying to find some way to fund public housing. That is no longer the case and, according to the current senior Minister and his predecessor, money is no object and capital investment has increased.

There are very strong arguments why these developments in particular, Shanganah Castle in Dún Laoghaire and St. Michael's Estate in Dublin city, should be taken out of the land initiative funding model and directly funded as part of the capital programme 2019. Publicly funding them would give the Minister much greater control of the tenure mixture and the ratio of affordable and social, or affordable sale, if that is included, would be based on local need, not on what the market can bear. The Minister would have much greater control of the development, particularly the timeline for its delivery. Affordable rent and purchase could be controlled and guaranteed at rates that are genuinely affordable for families with modest incomes. Sinn Féin is strongly of the view that if there are affordable sale options in either of these developments those units can never be sold into the private market and only ever sold back into the affordable scheme.

Shanganah is a unique proposal. It has unanimous support from the elected members of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council as well as the local community. It is well designed and considered and is ready to go. It has applied for stage 1 approval and I would welcome the Minister of State's confirmation of that. It could be up and running by the end of this year, following approval from the Department.

St. Michael's Estate has, unfortunately, despite the enormous campaigning by the local community experienced several failed public private partnership, PPP, regeneration projects. Rather than force it to go through the process again there is a strong argument for leaving it out, as well as concerns about gentrification, given its location. We have made this point privately to the Minister for State and now we are making it publicly. Both of these sites provide unique opportunities for direct public funding for social and affordable, including cost-rental housing and we urge the Minister of State to consider including them in the capital budget 2019.

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