Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Amendments Nos. 29 and 30, tabled by Senators Higgins, Ruane and Black, propose to require that all cost-rental homes developed on public land automatically revert to State ownership at the end of their designation as cost-rental dwellings. The current policy is that the best way of ensuring that cost-rental dwellings developed on public land or with State financial support remain within the cost-rental sector is by requiring that they be designated as cost-rental dwellings for a very long period. This would, in practice, equate to their retention within the sector in perpetuity for the functional lifespan of the homes. This requirement would be set out as a condition of the land transfer or in the funding agreement.

The Government and local authorities need the flexibility to set appropriate conditions for the varied ways in which the State can support cost rental. Where, for example, local authorities and the Land Development Agency deliver cost-rental homes, I envisage their committing these homes to the sector effectively in perpetuity, given the functional lifespan of the homes. If an entity such as an approved housing body has accessed State lands to deliver cost-rental homes, it will have been responsible for all costs relating to their construction and ongoing maintenance for the entire period, with the exclusion of any land cost being passed on as a benefit to the tenants in correspondingly lower rents.It is the individual tenants themselves, and not the State, who will have been paying rent to the AHB for the duration of the cost-rental period. The State may have made no additional financial contribution to the development of the homes bar the initial access to the land. As such, requiring that all properties built on State lands in this manner would revert to the State, even if no State funds had been used for their construction, would appear extremely disproportionate, and would likely dissuade entities such as approved housing bodies from seeking to access State land to develop this cost-rental model. Approved housing bodies have a core role, which is enshrined in legislation, to deliver social and affordable homes.

It is for these aforementioned reasons that I oppose these Opposition amendments.