Seanad debates

Friday, 28 May 2021

Affordable Housing Bill 2021: Committee Stage

 

9:30 am

Photo of Victor BoyhanVictor Boyhan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

That is fair enough. That is part of the argument. The follow-on in the next amendment is that the Senator is suggesting she is not against public private partnership arrangements. It is important to clarify that. I am trying to be consistent with the argument the Senator is making with regard to amendment No. 6.

We have had bad experiences with public private partnerships. There are many partnerships and we have to partner with everybody to deliver houses, be they public, private, social, co-operative or whatever. We have had successful and not so successful PPPs in respect of critical infrastructure such as roads, leisure, sports and recreation. I can think of many places where we have had mixed results, good, bad and indifferent, and we learn all the time. The key is to keep learning from experiences with PPPs. There is a place for them, but I believe we must look at conditionality - that word again - and applying conditions. Somebody has to be vigilant in respect of what is happening. There have been good news stories, and I will not single out a particular site. As regards the elected members on local authorities, I take note of the point made by Senator Cummins that it is beyond Dublin. It is very different in the big cities. There are different values and different demands. No place is the same. I believe there is a place for public private partnerships, but under a very strict code of management, structure and oversight. We see that in Shanganagh.

It is about homes. It is not about making developers rich. Nobody is doing something for nothing either. They must be paid. The more houses we are producing, the more people we have gainfully employed.The higher the economy is moving, the more cash that is generated in the economy and the more people we have working, the more likely we are to have the benefit of developing sites that have been zoned residential for years but have not been developed. Other sites have not been maxed out. We also have a situation where there are public private partnerships on the other side of it where developers are coming on the news and saying this is great and they guarantee they are going to do A, B and C. We must remember that they have had enhanced opportunities, for example, with higher densities. That is an important sweetener, if I dare use the word, for someone who wants to develop if they are told by the planning authority or the housing authority that it has a control in and is in favour of a higher density on a particular site. That is an advantage for somebody. No one is doing it for nothing. Let us stop codding ourselves. People have to be paid.

We must look at the provision of houses in the wider context of providing homes for people, cranking up the engine of the economy, getting people back in their little trucks and vans, doing a day's work and earning a decent day's pay and paying their way. The knock-on effect of the construction and provision of homes, enlivening new communities and regenerating new spaces and new communities and the building of public realms is all part of the bigger picture. We must look at it holistically. There is a role for PPPs, but it needs to be guarded and kept in check. We must make sure that people are delivering and they are not getting an advantage over anybody else because that is the problem with public private partnerships, in particular when it concerns a local authority, which is not the housing authority. It is the planning authority and it has its fingers in a number of pies. We must have a level playing pitch but at the end of the day it is about building more homes and harnessing everybody, everything and every financial resource to provide much needed homes for people.

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