Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independents 4 Change) | Oireachtas source

We have a situation in the Central Mental Hospital site in Dundrum which the Land Development Agency is supporting. That is a significant project. The agency should be supporting and developing public housing on public lands. The Donnybrook Partnership plans to sell 14 apartments in a development at Eglinton Road to Dublin City Council for €9.18 million as part of its Part V obligation to allocate 10% of any new private development to social housing. That is a mad situation because on what should be substantially discounted housing units, it puts an indicative price tag of €762,916 on each of the nine two-bedroom apartments and €469,000 on each of the five one-bedroom apartments in the development. We are paying money to private developers when we have land. We have seen what happened with O'Devaney Gardens and what will happen with the available land on Oscar Traynor Road, which the council will try to dispose of to the benefit of a private developer. This has to stop. We have a housing emergency and the Government needs houses for people on the housing list.

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