Holly Cairns (Cork South West, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

When the Land Development Agency, LDA, was being established in 2018, Fine Gael repeatedly said that it would be a game changer. We were told that 150,000 new homes would be built over 20 years and that sites had already been earmarked for 10,000. It was reported at the time that the first of these homes would be delivered in 2020. Many of these accolades concerning the LDA came from the Taoiseach. He said that the agency would be staffed by people with a proven track record in delivering homes and that it would hit the ground running. The praise did not stop there. He said that the LDA was one of the most significant ever State interventions in the housing market - as significant as the ESB, Aer Lingus or the IDA. Sadly, it was not to be.

Fast forward to today. Despite all of those lofty promises, the LDA has yet to deliver a single home on State land. We are told that we have to wait until next year, which will be six years after it was established, for that to happen.

There is more bad news in today's newspapers. Five years after the LDA's establishment, it has finally got around to conducting a review of property assets controlled by State companies. It found that fewer than 10,000 homes were capable of being delivered on these State lands within the next decade. This is pathetic. People reading these reports will be bewildered. If they are angry, too, I can understand that. They should be outraged at this utter incompetence.

How in the middle of a housing disaster when the Government claims it is pulling out all the stops has it taken the LDA five years to complete a review of the State's property assets? It is like some kind of sick joke. Some of the sites, like the CIÉ bus depot on Conyngham Road, were being spoken about as prospects for imminent development in 2018.

The abject failure of the LDA to live up to the Taoiseach's promises is just the latest betrayal in housing. We were promised 150,000 homes within 20 years. At the current rate of delivery, there is not a hope of that target being met. Was it an accurate assessment in 2018 to say that the LDA would be a game changer and hit the ground running?

Is the Taoiseach disappointed with the lack of delivery by the Land Development Agency? Does the Government need to revise its housing targets downwards given the bleak assessment from the LDA?

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