Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Ceann Comhairle's office for selecting this important matter for debate. I welcome the creation of the Land Development Agency, LDA. It will be a significant positive incentive in terms of its proposal to deliver 150,000 houses over the next 20 years. I would be grateful if the Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government, Deputy Eoghan Murphy, could update me on any legislation required and the powers of the agency. From the original press release, I note a chief executive and management team are in place in the agency.

I want to focus on Columb Barracks in Mullingar which was closed in 2012. It has an important historical significance for the town with events such as the capture of General Seán Mac Eoin in 1921. He was later Minister for Justice from 1948 to 1951 and Minister for Defence from 1954 to 1957. We need a solid framework to ensure the managed development of the Columb Barracks site which will encompass a strong social dividend, rehabilitate its listing buildings and ensure they have a sustainable use. We should also examine the potential of having a military museum at the site due to its historical significance. It has massive tourism potential for Mullingar. The site has a national significance and its history is part of the various milestones in the birth of the State.

The development of the site must have a strong social dividend for Mullingar. Several clubs and societies, like Lakeside Wheelers, the Olympic Boxing Club and the Order of Malta, are housed in the buildings of Columb Barracks. For example, Councillor Andrew Duncan, who works with me in Mullingar, is trying to get a framework to develop the site in a more sustainable way.

The fact the site will be under the control of one agency, the LDA, is positive. It will have the power to develop housing in a sustainable manner on the greenfield site as well as ensuring a sustainable future for its listed buildings. It will assist in developing a project which could be of benefit for the town of Mullingar.

I know the Minister is relentlessly focused on delivering housing and is successfully incentivising supply. He is also redressing the balance in State provision of housing. For so long, our State relied on the private sector to deliver housing under the Part V model. It is important to redress that balance to get the State to deliver housing again. The policies the Minister has implemented to achieve this are worthwhile and will bring significant dividends.

I want to ensure the LDA will not slice and dice the Columb Barracks site. I want to be confident that it will work with the local authority in having a framework to develop the site as an entity, as well as ensuring a sustainable use of the listed buildings with a social dividend for Mullingar and a bright future for the site.

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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I thank Deputy Burke for raising this important matter, which is a key priority for the Government. Following a Government decision last Thursday, both I and the Minister for Finance, Deputy Donohoe, signed an establishment order under the Local Government Services (Corporate Bodies) Act 1971, establishing the Land Development Agency, LDA, on an interim basis. The establishment order is very much an initial and enabling measure to get the agency up and running as quickly as possible while at the same time recognising that the Government must act swiftly in providing a fuller primary legislative basis for the agency and its intended scope of powers and operations.

Work is under way on this and I expect to have the general scheme of the Bill to the Government in November. This will take account of the intended functions of the agency, which will include co-ordinating appropriate State lands for regeneration and development, opening up key sites not being optimally used, especially for housing delivery, and driving strategic land assembly working with both public and private sector landowners to smooth out peaks and troughs of land supply, stabilising land values and delivering increased affordability.

The legislative basis for the LDA will also need to take account of its role in addressing the historical and traditional volatility in land prices as a result of land speculation as well as alleviating delays in delivering housing and strategic urban redevelopment generally. This can often be as a result of hold-ups in delivery due to disparate land ownership and cost allocation for infrastructure.

In addition, the legislation will need to take account of the intended positioning of the LDA as a commercial State-sponsored body with appropriate corporate governance and oversight arrangements and one which, like any other market operator, will act within a clear Government policy framework. In that context, it is critically important to take account of the decision that the Government has made requiring all public land repurposing to deliver at least 40% of any housing potential on such lands in the form of social and affordable housing.

My Department is working closely with the LDA establishment team, which is advancing its work on key sites as well as engaging with public bodies which control key sites, in developing the detailed approach to the scope of operations of the agency and learning from best practice abroad in similar public land agency type organisations. This detailed and preliminary input is key to informing the development of the general scheme of the Bill, for which I intend to bring a further memorandum for the Government in early November. This will seek approval to the detailed drafting of the legislation which we will be working hard to complete so that a Bill can be published and brought before the Houses.

Allowing for those considerations and complexities, at this point the ambition will be to secure the enactment of the legislation by Easter 2019. That said, the agency has been established on an interim basis. An allocation of €20 million has been made available by my Department until the legislation is put in place and the capitalisation by the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund, ISIF, of €1.25 billion can be made.

I thank Deputy Burke for all the work he has done with me and my Department to date, as well as with his local authority, to ensure we meet the concerns of his constituents when it comes to the delivery of more affordable housing from public lands. By doing so, we can also meet the concerns of his constituents in how we protect ongoing uses of these sites and the ongoing interests of the community. This will be a significant benefit to Mullingar. The new agency will see that the public land is put to use for the public good. The LDA will be the developer to do this. It will consult local Deputies and the county council, as well as other interested community groups when it comes to the master planning and development of the site. It will be an early win for the LDA because it is a priority site agreed with the Minister for Defence. I thank the Minister of State, Deputy Kehoe, for his co-operation to date on this.

This is not about slicing and dicing land. This is about bringing forward public land for housing for the public. By using this site in this strategic location, we will be able to deliver more housing, both subsidised and social housing, at a more affordable price and also housing for the public. What is more, it will not just be housing delivery on these key sites. The Land Development Agency, LDA, has a mandate beyond housing. We have tied in that important housing mandate but it will be able to meet the other interests of the community, as necessary, when we are talking about a site of such scale and strategic importance.

Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Minister for his detailed response. I want to focus specifically on Columb Barracks in Mullingar. Councillor Andrew Duncan works very solidly in Mullingar and he and I are clear in our minds that a key element is that there must be a solid dividend from the development of this site. The listed buildings should have a sustainable use that will benefit Mullingar. Projects could be developed in the interests of the nation and of the people of Mullingar in terms of a museum, the highly significant historical events that are part of the DNA of Mullingar and, indeed, the proud history of the 4th field artillery regiment, which, unfortunately, left Columb Barracks in 2012.

It is a welcome development that we have an agency to drive forward this site and ensure we will have an increase in housing supply in our locality. It can ensure there will be no slicing and dicing, as the Minister said. There is a framework to develop this site in a sustainable manner and to protect and find a sustainable use for the listed buildings. With Brexit and all the various uncertainties and Mullingar being quite close to the Border area, no one knows what future this significant site may have. The Minister is focused on delivering housing. The chief executive of the new agency has met representatives of Westmeath County Council and I expect him to interact and liaise with all elected officials and the local authority to ensure the best possible use is secured for this site for the people of Mullingar to bring more vibrancy to the town and also to ensure that the site will not be sliced and diced.

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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The Deputy is right to be proud of the history of the barracks and the people who were stationed there. It has a new future ahead of it and it is important we work together to protect that future in the public interest. There must be a social dividend from this site and it is important that dividend will be there for the people of Mullingar to enjoy.

I would just make a few more general points about the LDA. We are talking about State land, public land, which is not being used efficiently, that is in very desirable locations and that could be much better used for housing, schools or other community uses, including the ones the Deputy outlined. We now have, for the first time, a requirement that State land must be used more strategically in the public good and must be made available for housing for everyone, not only public houses for the public but also locking in 50% of houses for social and subsidised housing. That does not mean that we are selling 50% of the State land to private developers. Neither does it mean that 50% of houses on these sites will be unaffordable. Anyone who says otherwise is misleading the public. The State will be the developer. That is the purpose of the LDA. It is not to sell off the land to other developers. We will be the developer and we will use different methods to deliver and guarantee housing for the public in the public interest as well as other public goods, as necessary.

Without this new agency, State land that is in needed locations might never have been used for housing. When we look around our urban centres and our town centres on the outskirts of some of our villages, we can see how State land is not being used where it should be used for housing. When we think about our ambitions in Project Ireland 2040, there is a key role for the Land Development Agency here. If we are going to double the growth of our cities other than Dublin while also growing Dublin in a sustainable way, we need an agency to co-ordinate State land better and bring it forward for housing delivery and other types of delivery. If we are to smooth out the peaks and troughs that we have seen that have led to numerous housing crises in the history of our State, we also need the State to be bringing forward its significant landbank for housing delivery.

While the agency meets certain needs regarding the current shortage that we have, there is a longer-term ambition and strategic goal for it. We have needed such an agency for decades. It is very good we have one now as it looks to the future of particular sites, including the barracks in Mullingar, which the Deputy is right to be so protective of, and that we ensure we lock in protections for those sites and for the public in Mullingar into the future.