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

We have a problem with amendment No. 13. We welcome the fact that the reference to market price, which was one of our amendments, has been removed. Then, however, it refers it on to the Affordable Housing Bill, in which there is no clear definition that ensures "affordable" will genuinely be affordable in terms of rent or affordable purchase based on people's income. Instead, it will be specified by the Minister and references to market price, market conditions, and indeed, local market conditions still continue to litter the Bill.

In the one minute and 40 seconds I have left to speak to eight or nine amendments, I must correct a factually terribly important point made by Deputy Duffy about the Minister's commitment. Deputy Duffy is correct. The Minister made a commitment on Committee Stage that LDA sites in Dublin and Cork would develop exclusively 100% public and affordable housing as we, Deputy Duffy and others asked for in amendments. The Minister did not follow through on that commitment and it is not in this Bill. I will quote the section if the Minister wants. Amendment No. 120 is the Minister's and amendment No. 122 also relates to it. He said that in areas with a population of more than 150,000 people, he may prescribe up to 80%, which, when one takes in the Part 5 and Part 10, means it is possible that it could be 100% public and affordable but he can equally do far less than that. There is absolutely no hardwired obligation to deliver exclusively public and affordable housing on public land and that is our fundamental problem. By the way, the issue of a land assembly or land development is in the next grouping, not in this one. In this grouping, we are saying that the exclusive objective of the Land Development Agency should be to deliver public and genuinely affordable housing.

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In this amendment, we are saying that the exclusive objective of the Land Development Agency should be to deliver public and genuinely affordable housing. That should be its objective, as well as facilitating local authorities in achieving it.

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