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

The Deputy is right to be proud of the history of the barracks and the people who were stationed there. It has a new future ahead of it and it is important we work together to protect that future in the public interest. There must be a social dividend from this site and it is important that dividend will be there for the people of Mullingar to enjoy.

I would just make a few more general points about the LDA. We are talking about State land, public land, which is not being used efficiently, that is in very desirable locations and that could be much better used for housing, schools or other community uses, including the ones the Deputy outlined. We now have, for the first time, a requirement that State land must be used more strategically in the public good and must be made available for housing for everyone, not only public houses for the public but also locking in 50% of houses for social and subsidised housing. That does not mean that we are selling 50% of the State land to private developers. Neither does it mean that 50% of houses on these sites will be unaffordable. Anyone who says otherwise is misleading the public. The State will be the developer. That is the purpose of the LDA. It is not to sell off the land to other developers. We will be the developer and we will use different methods to deliver and guarantee housing for the public in the public interest as well as other public goods, as necessary.

Without this new agency, State land that is in needed locations might never have been used for housing. When we look around our urban centres and our town centres on the outskirts of some of our villages, we can see how State land is not being used where it should be used for housing. When we think about our ambitions in Project Ireland 2040, there is a key role for the Land Development Agency here. If we are going to double the growth of our cities other than Dublin while also growing Dublin in a sustainable way, we need an agency to co-ordinate State land better and bring it forward for housing delivery and other types of delivery. If we are to smooth out the peaks and troughs that we have seen that have led to numerous housing crises in the history of our State, we also need the State to be bringing forward its significant landbank for housing delivery.

While the agency meets certain needs regarding the current shortage that we have, there is a longer-term ambition and strategic goal for it. We have needed such an agency for decades. It is very good we have one now as it looks to the future of particular sites, including the barracks in Mullingar, which the Deputy is right to be so protective of, and that we ensure we lock in protections for those sites and for the public in Mullingar into the future.

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