Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independents 4 Change)
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32. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government if a commitment will be given that public land to be developed for housing can only be used for public housing. [27756/20]

Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independents 4 Change)
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According to housing statistics from Dublin City Council, the council housed 517 households last year, most of whom had been waiting for a home since the mid 2000s, according to the documents. That is nearly 15 years. The average waiting time was more than 12 years and one of the households had been on the list since 1996. We are in a housing crisis in the middle of a pandemic. Will the Minister of State, Deputy Peter Burke, give a commitment to build public housing on public land?

Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Deputy for her question. The programme for Government commits to the State playing a greater part in directly providing affordable and social homes with a focus on middle income earners and developing sustainable mixed tenure communities. These principles will guide our housing policy and the work of the Land Development Agency, LDA, in assembling strategic sites in urban areas and ensuring the sustainable development of social and affordable homes for rent and purchase. This will include ensuring the public housing rental stock on public lands is under the control of local authorities, approved housing bodies or similar bodies. The Department of Public Expenditure and Reform issued an update to the public spending code in October 2019 to include a requirement that, prior to seeking approval from the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform to dispose of land and buildings on the open market, all non-commercial State bodies must first consult with the LDA in relation to the appropriate disposal of these lands. This requirement will further be strengthened by a commitment in the programme for Government that any State lands offered for sale will automatically be offered first to the LDA. This would mean that these lands could be acquired by the LDA, ensuring they remain in the ownership of the State and are used to provide appropriate housing within its mandate.

Nine sites have been initially prescribed to deliver 3,600 homes. It is clear in the programme for Government that the basis for this will be enshrined in social and affordable housing and cost rental to ensure that we have a significant increase in the housing supply.

Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independents 4 Change)
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We have a situation in the Central Mental Hospital site in Dundrum which the Land Development Agency is supporting. That is a significant project. The agency should be supporting and developing public housing on public lands. The Donnybrook Partnership plans to sell 14 apartments in a development at Eglinton Road to Dublin City Council for €9.18 million as part of its Part V obligation to allocate 10% of any new private development to social housing. That is a mad situation because on what should be substantially discounted housing units, it puts an indicative price tag of €762,916 on each of the nine two-bedroom apartments and €469,000 on each of the five one-bedroom apartments in the development. We are paying money to private developers when we have land. We have seen what happened with O'Devaney Gardens and what will happen with the available land on Oscar Traynor Road, which the council will try to dispose of to the benefit of a private developer. This has to stop. We have a housing emergency and the Government needs houses for people on the housing list.

Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Deputy. It is clear that the Land Development Agency wants to deliver public housing on public lands. The make-up of that is clearly directed and includes affordable housing, cost rental and social homes. Actions speak louder than words. Planning permission has been granted for lands at Shanganagh, the application for which was submitted by the Land Development Agency, in tandem with Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council. That development will comprise 597 homes, 34% of which will be social housing, 54% will be cost rental and 15% will be affordable purchase. The key issue underpinning the Land Development Agency is to try to get affordability into the sector to ensure that we can provide homes at affordable prices. The Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, is working hard to deliver a scheme to underpin that over the coming months. It is obviously important that we get affordability into our housing market.

Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independents 4 Change)
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There are lands belonging to the Dublin City Council at O'Devaney Gardens and Oscar Traynor Road. There are lands across the country belonging to other local authorities. We need to build public and cost rental housing on those lands. We do not know what "affordable housing" means because no one has ever given us an idea of the cost of an affordable house and I would like to see that soon. We cannot clear housing lists in Dublin City Council and all local authorities while, at the same time, more than 10,000 families are in emergency accommodation, others are in the streets, the Housing First initiative is ongoing and all of that. We have to be much more vigorous in targeting these public lands for public housing and strategically building units for people who need them. I believe the Land Development Agency can play a crucial role but there must be a clear indication of what "affordable housing" means and we do not have that indication.

Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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The Land Development Agency will play a key role. The Deputy mentioned O'Devaney Gardens in Dublin. The project has been approved under the second serviced sites fund. That project and another in Killinarden were approved in August 2019. Those two projects will assist in the delivery of 465 affordable homes, with 165 in O'Devaney Gardens and 300 in Killinarden. The Department is constantly working with local authorities to progress projects like those, as it should.

The key thing is that when the State is in possession of significant land banks, we have an agency that can drive the delivery of these projects at a time of crisis to ensure that we are providing cost rental, affordable and social homes. That is how to ensure that our citizens have the best possible chance to get secure accommodation in the future.