John Cummins (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

As with much of this debate, it comes back to ideology. I will provide Senator Warfield with an example of a public private partnership housing scheme in my area which has been delivered as part of one of the national bundles. It is called Presentation Gardens. People will be getting the keys to those 63 homes in the next few weeks. How can Senator Warfield tell any of those who are getting one, two and three-bedroom homes that public private partnership arrangements are not working? Those people are getting homes to live in. That is something for which all of us in this House are advocating. Yet, the Senator seems to be opposed to certain mechanisms which can deliver houses.This is about maximising, and we will say that word time and again today, the ability of the State to provide homes for people to live in. Public private partnerships have a role in that. They are not the sole mechanism for doing it. There are many mechanisms such as local authorities, the LDA and approved housing bodies. We cannot tie the State's hands in providing homes.

With regard to amendments Nos. 7 and 9 and the 80% proposal, we must be aware that we are creating national legislation, as opposed to legislation solely for the Dublin area. The Minister is on record as supporting 100% social and affordable housing on sites in Dublin. However, I will refer to my area in Waterford. There are areas in that city which, over the last ten years, because of the collapse in the housing market only had social housing built in them. There are private land banks and council land banks in those areas. Unless we have the ability to put private housing in an area we will not create the mixed communities we need. While it might be appropriate to provide 100% social and affordable homes in Dublin, it might not be appropriate in a certain area in Waterford or in other parts of the country. It might be appropriate in another part of Waterford to consider 70% or 80% social and affordable housing in that area because there is a predominance of private housing there, but in other areas there might be a predominance of a different type of housing.

We are creating national housing legislation here. It must be adaptable. The Department and the councils must be able to look at their areas. They will do that through the housing needs and demands assessments which are being done for the development plans. We cannot just stipulate something that applies to a certain section of the country and not allow other areas of the country to avail of the flexibility that is required when creating national legislation.