Mary Fitzpatrick (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

This issue is close to my heart as a former local authority member. I am proud to have been elected and re-elected to the largest local authority in the country, Dublin City Council. I also speak on behalf of the Fianna Fáil Seanad group. All Fianna Fáil Senators are close to the local authority members and many of them had the honour of being elected to their local authority and representing their local communities. They understand in detail and value enormously the role of local authority members. I thank on their behalf Mary Hoade, Anne Colgan and the Association of Irish Local Government, AILG, for their submissions with regard to the Land Development Agency and their inputs to the other legislation we have been progressing, namely, the Affordable Housing Bill and the Planning and Development Bills.

The Fianna Fáil Seanad group has had many discussions with the Minister and our parliamentary party subcommittee on housing, which I chair, has addressed this issue. We do not address the issue of local authority members' reserved functions in isolation. We look at it in the round. We are committed to local government and believe in strengthening it. Most important, we believe in strengthening the powers of local authority members. That is why the Minister made good on the promise that had been made for so long to councillors to address their terms and conditions and I commend him on that. He has delivered on the Moorhead report, which was long overdue. AILG and other councillors campaigned on it and the Minister delivered that.

On top of that, the Minister acted when it came to the development plans. The most important reserved functions that local authority members have, arguably, are the ability to make strategic policy and to own the plan for their local authority area, be it a city or county plan. They undertake the work with pride. It takes a lot of their time and energy to engage with the executive function and with the other stakeholders, including, most importantly, the communities they represent. When it comes to county and city development plans, the Ministers has given the local authority members, rather than the executive, the power to extend those plans and to delay the making of new plans. The Minister understands and we understand the pressures all local authority members have been under. They have been in the front line during Covid and have tried to bridge the gap between the executive and the local communities.

I commend the Minister for the further powers he has given to local authority members. He has given them in the Affordable Housing Bill the power to build affordable homes to purchase and rent. He has proposed and passed the biggest housing budget, which gives money and funds directly to the local authorities. He has empowered them to continue to support businesses in their communities with the waiving of commercial rates. When it comes to housing, he has given democratic powers back to the local level in terms of reserving 50% of any new housing developments for social and affordable housing. He has doubled the 20% social and affordable on any private development, giving powers to local authorities.

The strategic housing development, SHD, process completely failed our local authority members in representing their communities. The Minister is bringing that to an end and replacing it with a planning process that will give decision-making back to local authorities.

It is fair for Senator Boyhan to ask what has changed. A number of things have changed in the Land Development Agency and all for the better. The one change in the real world is this: the housing crisis has got significantly worse and, in a small minority of important local authorities, certain councillors have sought to exploit the housing crisis for their political benefit. They have voted against housing in Tallaght, Clondalkin and Malahide. That is not acceptable in a housing crisis. I accept and will defend the reserved functions of local authority members to my death but I cannot stand over the abuse of those powers. Those powers are being used to delay solutions of our housing crisis and the provision of social and affordable housing.