Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The hoarding of land is a long established and very profitable practice in the property development and construction business in this country. As long as there are big profits to be made, land hoarding will continue. Land hoarding was recognised as a key factor in driving up house prices going back to the 1960s.

The Kenny report was commissioned and published in the early 1970s and proposed a workable, if far from radical, solution to the problem. Kenny based his report on a long-established practice in England whereby the Government decided where new towns or estates were to be built, a Bill in Parliament set up a planning commission, the land required was taken into public ownership and parcels were released to developers to build on. He proposed a version of this system where development land would be acquired by local authorities at no more than 25% above agricultural value. It was never implemented. We had the hoary old chestnut about a conflict with property rights in the Constitution. Yet, Part V measures in the Planning and Development Act 2000 were challenged in the courts and failed. The Supreme Court ruled Part V measures as being constitutional. From this, my understanding would be that a challenge to the implementation of the Kenny proposals would also be likely to fail and that it would fail in regard to Deputy Wallace's Bill.

The real reason the Kenny report was shelved was the opposition of powerful vested interests with strong political connections. A succession of Governments, involving Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, the Labour Party and even the Green Party, did not want to know when it came to this issue. As a consequence, instead of a rational system of development led by planners to meet the needs of society, we had a free-for-all led by speculation and corruption. Speculators would buy land, usually just above agricultural value and then push for rezoning. Rezoned land could rise in value by ten times. Purchasing such rezonings with brown paper envelopes was simply good business. Corruption in the planning process still continues, as recent events in Donegal and Monaghan demonstrate.

The current vacant site levy will not deal with this issue. A good question to be asked would be whether it ever was intended to do so. There has been a very slow response by local authorities in drawing up the vacant site lists in their areas. South Dublin, Fingal and Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown county councils have yet to declare any and that is also the case in Cork, Galway and Limerick. There are too many loopholes and the fee is too low. It is having no effect. For example, the National Asset Management Agency, NAMA, sold land to developers with a potential for 50,000 units but only 3,000 have been built. There is enough zoned land nationally to build half a million homes but, at the current rate of construction, it will take 100 years to achieve that potential. There is no urgency on the part of the Government to drive building in a planned way in response to the housing emergency.

The measures outlined in this Bill are a big step in the right direction but to solve the housing and homelessness crisis, we need a complete change of direction. Housing must be seen as a right, not as a means to superprofits for developers, and in particular, we need cost rental affordable models that would make housing accessible for ordinary people.

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