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

I thank Deputy Burke for raising this important matter, which is a key priority for the Government. Following a Government decision last Thursday, both I and the Minister for Finance, Deputy Donohoe, signed an establishment order under the Local Government Services (Corporate Bodies) Act 1971, establishing the Land Development Agency, LDA, on an interim basis. The establishment order is very much an initial and enabling measure to get the agency up and running as quickly as possible while at the same time recognising that the Government must act swiftly in providing a fuller primary legislative basis for the agency and its intended scope of powers and operations.

Work is under way on this and I expect to have the general scheme of the Bill to the Government in November. This will take account of the intended functions of the agency, which will include co-ordinating appropriate State lands for regeneration and development, opening up key sites not being optimally used, especially for housing delivery, and driving strategic land assembly working with both public and private sector landowners to smooth out peaks and troughs of land supply, stabilising land values and delivering increased affordability.

The legislative basis for the LDA will also need to take account of its role in addressing the historical and traditional volatility in land prices as a result of land speculation as well as alleviating delays in delivering housing and strategic urban redevelopment generally. This can often be as a result of hold-ups in delivery due to disparate land ownership and cost allocation for infrastructure.

In addition, the legislation will need to take account of the intended positioning of the LDA as a commercial State-sponsored body with appropriate corporate governance and oversight arrangements and one which, like any other market operator, will act within a clear Government policy framework. In that context, it is critically important to take account of the decision that the Government has made requiring all public land repurposing to deliver at least 40% of any housing potential on such lands in the form of social and affordable housing.

My Department is working closely with the LDA establishment team, which is advancing its work on key sites as well as engaging with public bodies which control key sites, in developing the detailed approach to the scope of operations of the agency and learning from best practice abroad in similar public land agency type organisations. This detailed and preliminary input is key to informing the development of the general scheme of the Bill, for which I intend to bring a further memorandum for the Government in early November. This will seek approval to the detailed drafting of the legislation which we will be working hard to complete so that a Bill can be published and brought before the Houses.

Allowing for those considerations and complexities, at this point the ambition will be to secure the enactment of the legislation by Easter 2019. That said, the agency has been established on an interim basis. An allocation of €20 million has been made available by my Department until the legislation is put in place and the capitalisation by the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund, ISIF, of €1.25 billion can be made.

I thank Deputy Burke for all the work he has done with me and my Department to date, as well as with his local authority, to ensure we meet the concerns of his constituents when it comes to the delivery of more affordable housing from public lands. By doing so, we can also meet the concerns of his constituents in how we protect ongoing uses of these sites and the ongoing interests of the community. This will be a significant benefit to Mullingar. The new agency will see that the public land is put to use for the public good. The LDA will be the developer to do this. It will consult local Deputies and the county council, as well as other interested community groups when it comes to the master planning and development of the site. It will be an early win for the LDA because it is a priority site agreed with the Minister for Defence. I thank the Minister of State, Deputy Kehoe, for his co-operation to date on this.

This is not about slicing and dicing land. This is about bringing forward public land for housing for the public. By using this site in this strategic location, we will be able to deliver more housing, both subsidised and social housing, at a more affordable price and also housing for the public. What is more, it will not just be housing delivery on these key sites. The Land Development Agency, LDA, has a mandate beyond housing. We have tied in that important housing mandate but it will be able to meet the other interests of the community, as necessary, when we are talking about a site of such scale and strategic importance.

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