Cian O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I agree with Deputy Smith on the guillotine. To be fair, I acknowledge that a small number of amendments are being addressed by the Minister. Many of the substantive issues we have raised are not being addressed and this is of significant concern to us. One of the areas in which the Minister was very strong on Committee Stage, and in his comments in public and in the media, is that he gave a very clear commitment that on Report Stage he would bring an absolute guarantee that 100% of the LDA homes in the large urban centres would be social, affordable and cost rental and that the guarantee would be in the legislation. The guarantee is not in the Bill. The legislation allows for it to happen but it does not guarantee that it will. This is a major weakness and flaw, and a major climbdown from what the Minister committed to. Why has he not provided the guarantee when he was so clear there would be an absolute guarantee in the Bill? This is a key point. If he is not able to deliver on his guarantee in the legislation, it calls into question the guarantee he has given. We need to know why, when he was so clear, is it not guaranteed in the Bill.

In any event, all housing on public land should be 100% social, cost rental and affordable purchase. I agree with Deputy Ó Broin as I also have concerns and they are reflected in the amendments I have tabled on Committee and Report Stages. I have concerns that potentially there will be a small delivery of social homes on these LDA lands, particularly given the context that until quite recently we saw 100% of public land used for social homes. The fact there could be a small enough percentage is very concerning.

There is a major cost to the Bill not being focused on active land management. For decades, housing in Ireland has been affected by land speculation, land hoarding, the drip-feed of homes and more expensive delivery of costly homes. These will continue because the LDA will not have key powers of active land management. This is in the context of having some of the highest house prices in Europe. The failure to tackle land costs and land speculation is a flaw in the Bill and is concerning. Another key flaw in the Bill is the concentration of multiple functions in one agency. This will lead to accountability issues and problems. This, combined with the absence of strategic land assembly on the scale it should be at, with strong compulsory purchasing powers, is a significant issue.

There have been good contributions from Deputies on the importance of strategic land assembly, climate change, the 15-minute city, the importance of building sustainable communities and the importance of investing in infrastructure, cycling and public transport. I agree with all of these comments. They are all points well made. The key problem with the Bill is that it does not provide a mechanism to capture the uplift in land value from rezoning and use it to invest in infrastructure and deliver affordability in homes. That this is missing from the Bill is a massive failure in what we could do to address climate change by using the land value uplift to invest in sustainable transport. This is a massive missed opportunity, considering the Green Party is an active part of the coalition government. Because this mechanism is missing from the Bill, we will continue to do the opposite. The public will continue to spend on infrastructure that does the opposite and confers land value uplift into the hands of private landowners and private land speculators, who then use the increase in land value to sell the land at a higher price so the homes are delivered at a higher cost. This will add to our affordability problems.

Other countries have figured out that we can capture uplift in land value if the land is subject to compulsory purchase at an early stage before it is zoned and the infrastructure and amenities are then put in. This leads to better and more sustainable communities at a much more cost-effective level, rather than handing the value over to people who have contributed nothing but have been fortunate enough themselves to have had the resources or capital to buy land early in the process. This is what the Bill is missing. It is a massive public value that could be captured. It would make a massive change in how land is assembled strategically in the long run. It would deliver the type of affordability that we need in respect of affordable purchase and cost rental, and of delivering social homes. It means we could deliver them at much more affordable rates.

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