Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

It would be more transparent for the LDA to be established through primary legislation before it begins its work. The idea of a Minister setting up bodies with such vast power via statutory instrument is not necessarily the sign of a healthy democracy. A former employee of the National Asset Management Agency, NAMA, is to be appointed as chief executive officer. Will the Minister explain how Mr. Tim Bouchier-Hayes got a job, given he is involved with McCann FitzGerald, which gave advice on the children's hospital? He was also on the board and involved in a serious fiasco there.

The statutory instrument setting up the LDA states that the services to be provided by the agency include the development and regeneration of land and property, including structures, for the purposes of delivering housing and the achievement of wider physical, social and economic development and regeneration, as well as supporting the consolidation and replenishment of the publicly owned development landbank, expediting the most effective use of such land. Identifying land for social and economic development is a start but the main goal of the LDA should be to facilitate the development of social and affordable housing. If the LDA is to function properly, it requires complementary legislation to be enacted that deals with landbanking. The Government is currently refusing to address it but I have it going through the system.

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