Pat Casey (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Returning to the topic of public land, I come from the perspective that we should use 100% of public land for public housing. I think everyone in this House agrees that the majority of our councillors also believe that public land should be used for public housing. It is ultimately their decision to propose development schemes. There is an element, therefore, of us putting our trust in that process. In addition, a measure at national level cannot always work its way down to the local level. Even in Wicklow, the dynamics in the north of the county when compared with the south are utterly different and unrecognisable. The challenges in south Wicklow are completely reversed in north Wicklow. Therefore, we need to allow flexibility.

If all public land is not needed for social and affordable public housing, my preferred option is to leverage other options for that land to deliver social and public homes. One of the strong aspects of this legislation is that we are restoring some level of power to local authority members. I trust them not to present a scheme that would not stand up to scrutiny or put the public interest and people first. While I understand and agree with what the Senator is saying, the dynamics are different in every county. They are even different within my county, where I could name five different sets of dynamics at work in respect of the housing crisis. We must allow this level of flexibility to our local authority members and we must accord them a level of trust to act in the right manner.

Councillors are elected to keep our local authority administrators in check. That is their function too, so they should not be hoodwinked by the administration. I would love to be a member of a local authority if it was possible to enter into agreements with the Land Development Agency and private companies. We never had that option when I was a councillor. We were stuck with the Department or forgetting about a scheme. We are giving local authorities and their members options to solve the housing crisis. While I accept the thrust of the Senator's argument, we must entrust the members of our local authorities with this flexibility and with these options.