Cormac Devlin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Ceann Comhairle for the opportunity to talk about the Land Development Agency again. It is important before the Bill is finalised to put on record the need for this agency to be established. As Deputy Crowe said, many Members of this House came from councils and over the last decade in particular, so much land was discussed that was never developed by the local authorities for various reasons. This changes that.

On Deputy Mattie McGrath's point earlier, there was a commitment that this legislation would be passed by the end of term. The Minister is keeping that and it is right. We have all said ad nauseam that housing is so important in this State and this will unlock and develop land we badly need. The Minister and his officials have brought this legislation through the pre-legislative scrutiny stage at the housing committee. It is important to see discussion among Deputies all across the House. They have put forward ideas and suggestions on the LDA.

The objective of this Bill is to establish the LDA on a statutory footing. That is an important principle and, while there have been previous attempts to establish it, this will put it in place and fund it. Targeting large areas, Dublin and Cork in particular, for 100% public homes on public land is important.

Shanganagh in my area has been referenced. We have more than 600 homes earmarked for that. That was talked about for nearly a decade and is good to see this through the LDA and the Affordable Housing Bills being passed. It is important we see progress being made on those sites and others. We are not just talking about local authority land; we are also talking about other State land, as was referenced earlier. That is an important point of this Bill. Some agencies have large tracts of land, have no intention of developing them or have never looked at them for housing purposes. The LDA will piece that together and deliver and increase housing, something I hope all Deputies want. The public have demanded it in the last 12 months. When the public was asked about it, housing was the key issue. The Government is responding to it. The Minister has worked extremely hard on it and for that I commend him. It is important we have the LDA Bill passed this evening.

See this speech in context