Marie Sherlock (Dublin Central, Labour)

I very much welcome the Bill and thank our colleagues in the Social Democrats for bringing forward an interesting approach to ensuring transparency. It is an understatement to say it is a real pity that the Government is opposing the Bill.

The reality is that the State is handing over billions of euro every year to developers in this State in respect of Part V housing, affordable purchase houses, cost rental and acquisitions. However, yet we have no clear oversight as to whom we are engaging with or, indeed, an ability to understand the astronomical figures that are charged to the State by developers for these desperately needed homes.

I would like to see this Bill form part of a wider framework of ensuring a commitment to decent working standards and a lack of gouging on the part of those who deal with the State in terms of procurement and how it spends it money. We do not have good transparency in certain sectors of the State. That is the reality. For many years, my party has talked about the problem of unlimited liability. The Company Law Review Group looked at this matter many years ago. People are selling goods and services to the State but we have no idea of who really we are dealing with or their profit margins. We also do not have a level playing field when it comes to negotiating on cost because we cannot see what kind of money those to whom I refer are making. That needs to change.

With regards to housing specifically, I mentioned the various ways in which the State has to deal with developers week in, week out. I see it in my constituency of Dublin Central. I welcome that it seems as if the housing units at O'Devaney Gardens may all be social, affordable or cost rental but, of course, the State is paying an absolute fortune for that. Part of the cost in this regard is passed on in terms of the prices those who will be going through the affordable purchase scheme will pay.

On Part V, the city councils are routinely paying well in excess of €500,000 of houses. In one instance, €717,000 was paid by Dublin City Council for a two-bedroom unit under Part V. There is a fundamental problem in that the State effectively has no choice in desperate circumstances but to hand over the money. At a time when we talk so much about efficiency and value for money in respect of the public finances and of trying to battle waste, there is a large amount of waste in the context of what the State is spending. We are caught in a bind whereby we have to hand this money over in order to provide homes and put a roof over people's heads. That comes at a king's ransom to the State.

The other key part is that progress on the development of parts of our city has been hugely held up as a result of land hoarding by developers over the past decade. That is partly because of a collapse in international finance coming in to developers in this country; it is also partly because of greed and the massive return on investment for doing no work in the context of purchasing a site, sitting on it and being able to sell it on at a later date. When we look at the significant number of planning permissions in Dublin and across the country that have not been commenced, we can see that there is a real issue. In the first quarter of this year in the Dublin City Council area, of the 25,905 units for which planning permission had been obtained, work on 14,701 had not been commenced. The Planning and Development Act gives developers the opportunity to get their act together and extend planning permissions for up to three additional years provided an environmental impact assessment is not required. The reality is, however, that sufficient force has not been used by the Government to deal with those who are hoarding land in our city and forcing prices up. The Government's mantra has been that if there is more supply, prices are going to go down. Yet, we on these benches all know that is not the case because of the way that supply is drip fed into the market, because of the way in which units are developed and because of the lack of transparency in developers' dealings with a State that is desperate to try to provide more housing.

The other key issue here is that the croí cónaithe scheme has failed. When you look at the Government plan to try to develop units to date, what has been an effective handout to developers via croí cónaithe has not worked. Only one fifth of what was promised in 2022 has been delivered. There has to be a rethink about how housing is delivered. Of course, those of us on these benches are clear that we need a State-led approach to housing as opposed to being in the thrall of developers and having developer-led housing. The Land Development Agency has been underutilised. We have approximately 33 acres across Dublin Central on which, potentially, approximately 4,500 homes could be built. However, we are seeing very little progress in that space. It needs political will, and we are not seeing that from Government. When the Minister of State's party leader responds to us in respect of housing, we hear little from him with regard to how the how the Land Development Agency and local authorities are being pushed to progress work on sites.

5 o’clock

This is a very welcome Bill. It is obviously just one of the many actions required to ensure that the State is much more informed when it comes to engaging with developers. We are very clear that developers are part of the landscape of how housing is developed in this country. However, it needs to be to a much lesser extent and it a much more even and balanced way. Right now, the State is effectively being forced to hand over money for units in circumstances where it has very little insight into or oversight of the true cost involved in developing those units.

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