Victor Boyhan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State to the House. For those outside of the House, it is worth saying that the Land Development Agency is a commercial, State-sponsored body and has been created to co-ordinate land within the State's control for more optimal uses with an appropriate focus on the provision of housing.

I am particularly delighted that again, even today, I read in the national press that the Land Development Agency is currently seeking procurement and bidders to develop 600 affordable and social homes at Shanganagh Castle. This is a large tract of land that was sold with the involvement of the then Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Senator McDowell. It has lain idle for a long time. It is an amazing site, on a public transport route beside wonderful amenities, and is one of the sites that are ready to go. I thank the Minister of State and all those involved for that.

The Shanganagh Castle site shows, as many of my colleagues on the Joint Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage who are present will agree, the good and constructive work that has been done by the executive and members of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council and the Land Development Agency, who pulled everything together. This case shows what can be achieved through dialogue. Dialogue has not always taken place, however. We have chief executives in local authorities who do not have the same commitment to engaging. We all know that.

I have tabled a number of amendments, which I will deal with next week. I acknowledge the work of the Association of Irish Local Government, AILG, representatives of which appeared before the joint committee and sought our support. I have committed to supporting the AILG and I will table all of the amendments it has proposed. Hopefully, we can tease them out next week.

One of the big issues for the AILG is section 183 of the Local Government Act. The Minister of State and Senators might ask why the association is so hung up about this section but it is an important one. What does section 183 do? It requires the chief executive to prepare a report for the elected members showing if there are any restrictive covenants and historical or other issues concerning sites, and to provide maps and certainty about ownership. What is important is that this is put to the elected members who can then decide to dispose of a site. If they fail to dispose of a site or make a decision within a certain time, the chief executive can automatically dispose of it. The most important point about section 183, however, is that it provides conditionality for the elected members. I have been involved in many section 183 disposals. I cannot recall members every opposing one. We teased them out and had many arguments before attaching certain conditions to them. That is very important. There was some debate about conditionality with regard to Shanganagh Castle and interesting legal advice was provided for the members in that regard. For this reason, I can understand why elected members do not want to see this particular section.

I wish to speak to the Minister of State about the land aggregation scheme, with which he may be familiar. Under this scheme, local authority chief executives acquired land at great expense, having decided it would be suitable as a land bank at some time in the future. We must be very careful when we use the words "local authority". I am talking about the executive of a local authority, not sitting county councillors. In my local authority, the land acquired did not have water services, electricity or other infrastructure. Some of it was halfway up a mountain. Millions of pounds were paid for it. Members can speculate all they like about the reasons or who owned the land, why it was bought and why public money was used. It should not have happened. All local authorities under previous administrations were asked if they would consider sending these lands back into the land aggregation scheme. The Department rejected most applications to the scheme - why would it want these lands? - and they were, therefore, sent back to the local authorities.These local authorities are now paying only interest on these sites. Many of the problems associated with these sites were because of executives and not elected members. None of these executives got fired and no one got sacked. That is common. A person would be fired in the private sector. We are now suggesting that we will empower the non-elected executive of these councils to dispose of lands, albeit I take the Minister of State's point that they are zoned residential, without any reference to or veto for the elected representatives. I do not necessarily believe that is the right way to go. I would have liked all these disposals to go to a section 183 and where one fails for the Land Development Agency, there would be a third-party arbitration scheme. We should have insisted that all disposals still go through the section 183 regardless of the LDA and if there is a dispute, it goes to a third-party arbitration appeals process. That would have been fairer.

The Minister of State is committed to empowering local authorities. He spoke very eloquently recently about the elected mayors. We will, therefore, take Limerick as an example. If we have an elected mayor in Limerick next year, that elected mayor will not have any function. The executive - the men and women in the room next door - will be making decisions unknown or perhaps known to the elected member. The elected mayor we are empowering in Limerick, however - hopefully, there will be elected mayors all over the country in time - will have no veto on behalf of the people. If, therefore, we are really empowering local city and county councillors, we must give them that power and function. Through their representative body, the AILG, they have asked us to put a case forward. I note that one of the Government Senators has tabled an amendment. I believe that is really important.

Generally, I am supportive of the Land Development Agency. I believe it is a good agency. I want to be positive. Its database and systems, to which Senator Cummins referred, are amazing. They are wonderful tools, which have shone a light on places we never knew. We know we have health authority, railway and harbour company lands. We have lands all over the place. We have Defence Forces lands in very sensitive locations, which will be challenging but must be looked at. We have Thornton Hall and lands all over this country and we need to do something about them. We need to use them constructively with regard to housing. I would go as far as to say that in time, we will have to look at using the Land Development Agency to secure lands for enterprise and schools. I see the Land Development Agency being the old - dare I say it - land agent. It will be the central hub and knowledge of all our lands in this State and at least they will be accounted for. It will tidy up title and mapping. We will know who owns the lands and they will feed into our local development plans and country, regional and national plans. I believe, therefore, that is good.

There is an issue with regard to valuation, which I believe we must look at. We can no longer have Dublin city valuers valuing land for Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council and vice versa. I do not believe the Land Development Agency is about a land grab. It should focus on the delivery of housing. The reality is that we need to go back and focus on the delivery of houses. I gave the elected members and their organisation, the Association of Irish Local Government, a commitment. I have tabled the amendments. Hopefully, we will debate them. I would like to think we might consider accepting some of them. I thank the Minister of State very much.