Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for her very kind comments in advance. I have good news for the Deputy in that today, at Government, we approved legislation relating to land value sharing, which deals fundamentally with the issue of excessive profits being made following the zoning of land. Given the level of public infrastructure and investment that takes place in the State on any land that is zoned for housing, a portion of that value must accrue to the State. This is very radical legislation and is Kenny-like in respect of the Kenny report of many decades ago. This legislation will be introduced and there is also a zoned land tax, which will be a further feature to deal with hoarding in respect of planning permissions.

If the Deputy combines all of the measures that have been taken, a fairly radical approach is being taken now, both legislatively and policy-wise in respect of the utilisation of land, preventing land speculation and endeavouring over the medium term to get land pricing down, so as to get house prices down.

In parallel with that, we have an unprecedented investment in housing to the tune of €4 billion per annum. The legislation which the Deputy has referred to, which is minor but essential legislation in respect of interim measures for An Bord Pleanála, also has measures to deal with exempting from Part 8 the building of social and affordable homes on publicly owned local authority land to accelerate the planning process. I have been in this House for quite some months where people have been saying that this housing crisis is an emergency and that we need to act urgently. The Minister's amendment is designed to enable us to move quickly, particularly with rapid-build housing on local authority land for social housing.

I do not see why anyone in the House could object to that, given that we need to increase the number of houses we build and build them more rapidly. That is the agenda. The Bill relates to the appointment of an interim chairperson of An Bord Pleanála, which is very important given what has happened in it.

Across the board, there is now a range of schemes to deal with the housing crisis, including the Croí Cónaithe towns and cities scheme, the help to buy scheme and the first homes scheme. This year, there were 16,000 first-time buyers, the highest number since 2008. About 18,000 social homes have been built since 2020, the highest figure in a long time. This year we aim to get to 10,000 social houses, with 8,000 built, which is the highest number in many decades. We are building momentum but we have to go faster and do more. That is the objective of the legislation, namely, to give us the capacity to go faster and get more houses built more quickly so that young people who are looking for housing can get them it an affordable level.

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