Kathleen O'Meara (Labour)

I am dealing with the facts of the legislation which I have studied in some detail and on which I have formed an opinion which, as a member of a local authority, I am capable of, and entitled to give. The Minister should argue his points in a rational way.

I refer to the amendments to the framework to operate the 20% provision and the extensions to the framework contained in the legislation. At present houses, land and sites may be transferred by agreement. The two significant amendments provide that land may be mixed and matched, so to speak; in other words, a developer may come to an agreement with a local authority to match up two pieces of land. It sounds reasonable in theory but it runs the risk of creating a situation where all social and affordable housing is located in one area. It undermines the specified objective of the legislation to have integration in terms of social and affordable housing.

It is worth pointing out that the Supreme Court judgment on Part V of the original Act points clearly to the principle contained in it, that is, that there should be integration. Mr. Justice Keane said it was clear that the purpose of the scheme was to facilitate the purchase of houses by people who would otherwise not be in a position to buy homes and to ensure, as far as possible, that housing developments of this nature were not isolated from the general community. However, this amendment runs the risk of having an isolating effect.

The second significant amendment provides that the landowner or developer and the local authority may enter into an agreement where the landowner or developer may buy out their responsibility; in other words, it provides in the agreement for the payment of a specified amount to the planning authority.

The main problem faced by local authorities is difficulty securing land, not money. In fairness to the Department, it has not been slow to provide funds to local authorities to build public housing, particularly in recent years. Finance has not been the problem but rather securing land. This amendment runs a serious risk of allowing builders to do something they would be happy to do, that is, to buy out their responsibility to provide the land for housing. They would be able to pay off the local authority and they would be happy to do that. It is likely that will happen.

It is interesting that these two provisions were not contained in the original Act. That they are included in this legislation dilutes the fundamental provision that when land is rezoned for residential purposes and when builders and developers build on it, there is a responsibility to ensure that market forces alone do not prevail and that those who are unable to meet the market price of housing, an increasingly common problem, are accommodated. Unfortunately, these amendments will undermine the fundamental principle of the original Act, which is regrettable. We will see an inevitable paying off by developers of their responsibilities.