Brian Leddin (Limerick City, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister. He and his officials have produced very important and stellar legislation which I believe will stand the test of time. I thank the committee, chaired by Deputy Matthews of my party and whose office is down from mine in Leinster House. I have seen his dedication and hard work on this over recent months.

In this debate so far we have not touched on one of the more important reasons we would have a Land Development Agency as conceived by this legislation. At the outset of this Government 12 months ago, the Taoiseach said the three priorities of Government would be health, housing and climate. We are in danger of looking at these three issues in a very siloed way, but in reality they are very connected. I will draw a link between this Bill and climate, which is my own particular interest, and I chaired the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Climate Action. The Minister will be aware we have gone through some significant work in recent months. We expect that the climate Bill will pass through the Houses of the Oireachtas and into law in the next few weeks. Housing and climate cannot be separated. Housing as it is currently configured in Ireland is very linked to our greenhouse gas emissions. We have a commitment in the programme for Government to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 7% per year, which is about 51% through to 2030 and down to net zero by 2050.

In my committee we did a series of sessions in recent months on transport emissions, which are generated by bad planning and by putting houses, commercial developments and office developments far away from each other such that people need to drive. The LDA recognises this and the importance of good planning and good spatial development so that we do not need to depend on the private car and we do not need to generate greenhouse gas emissions. It is a very significant step in Irish planning and in governance that we now have a national agency that will embrace the concept of compact growth such as the 15-minute city and the ten-minute town. These concepts are critical to the development of our society as we go forward.

In my city of Limerick, the LDA has engaged on a significant piece of work to develop high-density, high-quality, housing on the Colbert Station lands, which are very near the city centre. It is about 50 acres of land. We believe the development of these lands will significantly enhance Limerick city and make it a sustainable city environmentally and economically. It will lead to Limerick thriving in the decades to come.

Transit oriented development has been championed by the LDA and its former chairman, Mr. John Moran.

It is the idea that housing is developed around transport nodes in a high-density but high-quality way, which is family oriented and connected to amenities and all that towns and cities have in their condensed nature. This is critical and it marks a step change in how we do housing in Ireland. I look forward to the LDA continuing its work and embracing those ideas in the years to come. What we will see, and what the Bill will underpin, is a new way forward in how we develop housing in Ireland in an economically and environmentally sustainable way.

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