Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I spoke last week about articles in the newspaper. We see local authorities now being told they should lease rather than buy. I do not want to be inaccurate but I think it might be the Heron Wood estate. I am not sure if that is correct.I understand the financial pressures of the time. The fact is that more was paid out in 20-year leases than could have been used to buy the houses. However, for a very long time, there has been no excuse for not having direct ownership and purchase agreements rather than leasing agreements, except that leasing agreements have been a preference. We saw in the newspapers last week how a local authority had been told that it should lease for 25 years. In another article in the same newspaper, the Business Post, we learned about a fund that spoke about how great it was that local authorities leased from it for 25 years because the fund got a guaranteed return for 25 years. Leasing may have come in at the time of the last recession, which I remember very well, but it became embedded as a preferred model. It is one of the forms of public private partnership we have had, which is one of the factors that has led to distrust and concern. This is not about any actors in it. It is a question of whether these are good deals for us and they do not look like good deals. That is the concern. Right now, there is literally no excuse for leasing entire estates. There is no reason for them. We do have the liquidity and the capital. We are not where we were at that point. That was because at the time, the Government at the time and Europe pursued an austerity response to a crisis, which Europe as a whole and many of its financial institutions have realised had highly negative consequences for our social cohesion and society. This is why a stimulus approach is now being taken, which I welcome. Let us recognise that we are using a stimulus approach. I am not saying everything is wonderful. I think we all know it is a really difficult time economically but there has been a realisation that stimulus and investing in public infrastructure and in secure housing is a really good thing that has really good returns.

I will not press amendment No. 6. I accept the arguments that have been made in respect of situations where those arrangements might not relate to public land. I think that is valid. It is the prerogative of others who have tabled the same amendment to decide what to do with it. I am very aware that build is one of the options on that list but what I hope the Minister of State is hearing is the extent to which it is a strong preference. We need to move away from talking about local authorities not having building units. There is no reason why there should not be. They are not there because they have not been resourced to be there. I feel the frustration from former local authority members who talk about the Department not really wanting local authorities to build. Ultimately, it is about procurement but there is no reason why local authorities should not be built up in terms of their capacity to directly procure building services. There has been a deskilling in that area much as there has been a deskilling in the maintenance area of local authorities. Those are capacities that can be created. In the past, we had building. It is not a suggestion that somebody on the executive in City Hall must go down and figure out how deep to put the foundation on his or her own. There are people who are experts in that. It is a matter of the middleman piece. That is the fear. It is the fact that where there are middlemen, although they are not always men but often they are, in terms of that private partnership piece, that becomes an additional cost that is added in.

I will not press amendment No. 6 but I will press amendment No. 9. In respect of the public-public partnership arrangements, from what I have heard, the Minister of State believes local authorities undertaking to build are already covered by the provisions of the Bill so in respect of that understanding that there is nothing in this Bill, and I see the Minister of State nodding, I will not press amendment No. 8, although I may come back with a new version of it on Report Stage just to copper-fasten these things explicitly in respect of public land.