Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

There is a problem. The Minister has a point. The motion we tabled during the summer proposed a minimum of 20% social and affordable housing and a minimum 30% on SDZs. There is a problem if that is all we do. I regret that what Deputy Ó Bróin has proposed is not enough. We need 100,000 social houses on public land, for which we have sites available, over the next five years to even begin to get near solving the problem, which equates to 20,000 houses per year. Anything less and we are in serious trouble. On Part V, there is a problem as well, even with this proposal if done on its own.

The problem is that if we buy the units back at these prices - and the State must, under the Part V scheme, lease or buy them - it will cost the State a fortune. We should therefore not buy the completed units. This was the point Mel Reynolds made, and I put it to all in the House, particularly the Minister. He said we should take the 10%, 20%, 25%, 30% or whatever the percentage is - and I think 25% and 30% are good percentages - of the land now and upfront, not the completed units whenever these speculators decide to build. We do not know when they will build. In Cherrywood, for example, one of the biggest planned residential developments in the State, not a single unit has been built. The developers got it about six or seven years ago from NAMA. We should therefore take our chunk now, take a chunk near the entrance to Cherrywood so we avoid any of the servicing problems and so on and build our bit now. This would mean we could build it at a much cheaper price. The State can build on the land at about €200,000, perhaps €250,000 - or less, between €170,000 and €220,000 - per unit. If the State buys the land, it will be relatively cheap; if the Government waits for the developers to give the State the completed units, the State will be waiting forever and will pay a fortune when it arrives.

This is what we should do on all these sites, whether strategic development zones or whatever else. We should take the land now so it becomes public land and build at the price at which we can build, which will be cheaper and then we will deliver the units more quickly. This is a very serious, practical proposal. Whatever percentage is agreed on this, this proposal would make a significant difference. It would accelerate things and collapse the dichotomy that Deputy Darragh O'Brien and the Minister proposed when they spoke of the impact on price and so on because it would not be-----

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