Steven Matthews (Wicklow, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Mattie McGrath for reminding me that An Taisce is a prescribed body in respect of planning regulations. It would be a good move for the Land Development Agency to also become a prescribed body to enable it to be made aware of the submission of planning applications which may border or impact public lands. It is something I will discuss with the Minister, and it is an aspect which may be introduced under planning rather than within the remit of this Bill.

I will not be supporting the amendments put forward, but I thank the Deputies for giving us the opportunity to discuss further the Land Development Agency Bill 2021. It is important we listen to the Opposition and that we listen to all sides of a discussion. However, I have heard nothing here this evening to convince me other than that this legislation is one of the most significant and important housing Bills we have seen in a long time. Coupled with the Affordable Housing Bill 2021, which I hope to see passed shortly, these will be two major Bills which will deliver affordable housing at scale. It is a challenge and it will not happen overnight, despite claims from many in the Opposition that they can deliver houses and magic them up out of nowhere. This will take time and proper Bills, such as this one, must be passed to empower and enable us to do this.

I thank the Minister and his Department for the incredible amount of legislation being produced. I refer not just to housing but also the discussion we had yesterday in respect of flexibility concerning the planning process to enable us to make the changes as we see fit in the context of the impact of Covid-19. The Ministers of State, Deputies Noonan and Peter Burke, attended the Committee Stage of this Bill.

We had 269 amendments and every single one was addressed by the Minister or the Ministers of State. Any amount of time was given to Deputies who appeared at that committee and I thank the Minister for that. I also acknowledge that the Minister took on board a number of amendments and agreed to come back on Report Stage with changes. I thank him for doing that.

The LDA vision is for cost rental housing at scale and we know that because the LDA appeared before the committee to discuss the Affordable Housing Bill at the pre-legislative scrutiny stage. We know the objectives of the LDA. The Green Party has been calling for the delivery of cost rental accommodation for a very long time and for the establishment of an agency such as the LDA. It is not just the Green Party that has called for it. The National Economic and Social Council, NESC, issued a report, No. 150, on housing policy which called for the establishment of the LDA on a statutory footing as a matter of urgency with an enhanced mandate to provide land for social housing. It said that the agency should be equipped with a planning role and given the tools to assemble land. It should also be given the land management expertise required for complex, large-scale building projects to engage in direct development, including through compulsory purchase orders, CPO. I heard the CPO powers being criticised this evening but the CPO powers given to the LDA will be quite adequate. Often the threat of CPO is all that is needed, rather than having to go down that route which can take a long time. The LDA will also be tooled up to engage in master planning and the land value capture that is needed. This is the view of NESC, which is a very respected think tank in this country. It has produced some really significant and important reports over the years. It talks about creating specialist teams to assist local authorities to undertake the necessary complex tasks around unlocking land and sites. That is exactly what this Bill does and it brings about the urgency that NESC talked about. NESC also talked about establishing a cost rental programme at scale, to ensure access to land at favourable terms and homes and rents that are affordable. The LDA is focused on that and it told us so at the committee.

In terms of its objectives, the LDA is also tasked with creating sustainable and well-planned communities. It will be able to operate at such scale and vision that it will be able to pull together developments. Often what we see in the planning system is isolated developments with no cohesion between them. That is all the planners can judge because we lack county architects to bring that together. The LDA will be able to operate at that scale with that architectural vision of how places should develop and the linkage between communities. The focus is not on isolated, high-density communities but on building homes and not just houses. That is critically important.

Significant funding has been put in place for the LDA and the Minister has indicated that funding will increase further in order to develop affordable, social and cost rental housing. We need to match that housing funding with transport services. It is no longer acceptable for large-scale developments to indicate that public transport is "nearby" or that a development is "served" by public transport. That transport must be reliable, high frequency, comfortable and affordable. We need to see a commensurate increase in funding for public transport as we have seen for housing.

We also need to see the creation of public open spaces; amenity spaces that people can enjoy. If one looks at the European model of high-density developments, one always sees public open spaces that are well managed. High density development requires that and the LDA will focus on it. It was stated by Deputy Ó Broin during the Committee Stage debate, which I chaired over seven sessions, that we should "direct the LDA", or words to that effect, away from residential development. That is the most incredible statement for an Opposition housing spokesperson to make, that we should direct the LDA away from creating residential development. It was an incredible statement and I hope Deputy Ó Broin gets the opportunity to elaborate on it. We have seen Sinn Féin members on various councils objecting to housing. The Opposition is concerned with this Bill not because there is anything wrong with it but because it is good legislation, as is the Affordable Housing Bill. These two Bills will deliver housing. This is the Government that will deliver housing at scale.

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