Seanad debates

Friday, 9 July 2021

Land Development Agency Bill 2021: Second Stage

 

9:30 am

Photo of Aisling DolanAisling Dolan (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am sharing time with Senator Seery Kearney. I welcome the Minister of State to the House. Today we are dealing with the Land Development Agency Bill. It is great to see it. This Bill is going to develop and regenerate publicly owned lands for affordable housing.That is what it comes down to, in a nutshell. I welcome the clarity the Minister of State has given on section 183. He has stated very clearly that it will only not apply where land has been zoned for housing. In other words, the only place it would not be implemented is in county development plans where the local authorities have indicated that the land is there for housing. Senator Murphy referred to certain areas of Roscommon and east Galway where we do not have large urban centres - at least not yet. Hopefully we will soon but many of our centres have populations of under 10,000. How can we capture the tracts of land in our areas on the public land register? I am thinking in particular of lands owned by the HSE. We have an awful lot of land from Bord na Móna as well but that is probably not as suitable for housing, although it is suitable for many other things. As far as I am aware, the ESRI maps on the website show State-owned lands. Will the public land register reflect the ESRI maps and areas outside those large urban centres? What resources could the Government offer to support local authorities? For example, Galway County Council is the second lowest funded council in the country. The Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, has indicated that supports will be offered in the form of project teams for the directors of housing within local authorities. How will the LDA be able to support county councils where there are not urban centres over 10,000 with resources?

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