Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal East, Fianna Fail)

I assure the Deputy I am not sitting on the report. It deserves scrutiny and that actions be taken from it. That is the work I am doing with the Minister, Deputy Heydon, and the Minister of State, Deputy O'Sullivan. When we publish it, we will be able to show some exemplar projects in this country. Geraldine Tallon and her team looked across Europe at community-based, land-based projects and examples in Ireland came to the fore. Our job is to scale this up. I would like to see this go to the Oireachtas committee. It would be a good idea for the committee to look at and scrutinise it. The phase 2 report can guide us all as policymakers with regard to real community-based, land-based initiatives we can take.

The Deputy mentioned the 78% of landholdings in private ownership. When you look within the report, you see that the survey of land ownership is quite incomplete. That is not a criticism of the work done but it is about getting the data. One would think that if 78% of land is in private ownership, then 22% is in public ownership, but it does not stack up that way. More work needs to be done on that but I do intend to publish it. It is not just up to me, by the way. We need to publish it in conjunction with the Departments of agriculture and housing. I want that done before Christmas.

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