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

The Social Democrats certainly will not be opposing these amendments. On the Land Development Agency, there is a massive gap between the initial promise put forward by Fine Gael's then Minister for housing, Eoghan Murphy, for what the Land Development Agency would deliver in terms of housing and what has transpired in the six years since then. I invite the Minister of State to speak about that gap and what the Government is doing to close it. Is the Government concerned about that gap in terms of lack of delivery? Is the Government doing anything else in conjunction with these amendments to address that slowness and lack of scale in terms of delivery?

From the outset, the Social Democrats was the party that put forward the idea that we needed a land development agency in this country. We made the case very strongly that this land development agency should have strong compulsory purchase order, CPO, powers to compulsorily purchase land, assemble sites and get land available for housing on the kind of scale we need. There is no chance that the 60,000 homes we need each year are going to be delivered without active land management. It simply will not be done by private actors alone.

Of the approximately 30,000 homes that are being delivered per year at the moment, 5,000 are individual self-build homes, approximately 10,000 are social housing and the remainder, comprising approximately 15,000 properties, are being produced by the private sector. There is no way that is going to scale up to the amount we need if there is no active land management. There is no way that will happen if most of that gap is not filled by affordable housing, which means a very active role for the Land Development Agency and the not-for-profit sector. The Minister of State might address that point regarding the gap between what was initially promised by then Minister for housing, Eoghan Murphy, and what has transpired since. Is the Government concerned about that? What is the Government doing about it?

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