Pat Casey (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am sure the Minister will agree that every opportunity should be availed of to provide 100% public housing on public land where it is needed and that he will support that. We should remember that, as drafted, the legislation provided for 30% and that, in fairness to the Minister, that was increased to 50%, while the Part V provision was increased by a further 10%, which brought it to 70%. The Minister then increased it to 80% and 20% for the cities of Dublin and Cork, and that must be recognised.

It does not always work out that when a policy has been drafted at national level, it works its way down to county level. In the north of my county, Wicklow, I know that if there was public land there, it would be used 100% for public housing. Moving farther into the more rural areas of the county, however, we would probably be trying to attract in private investment and build private housing along with public, cost-rental and affordable housing. We all agree that public land should be used for public housing, but we also must recognise that sometimes there is a need to bring in some private housing to create the mix of communities we all desire. I could highlight areas in Wicklow that are crying out for private housing rather than social housing. We need to incentivise that, and in the case of public land, we probably could create a better mix.

I fully accept the idea of 100% public housing for public land, but there are cases where we need that flexibility. Moreover, I am not in favour of central government dictating all the way down to local level. We need to give that flexibility regarding the type of housing down the line.