Róisín Garvey (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister to the House. He was worn a path here. I welcome also the LDA. It is a big improvement on what we had before. We can always talk about what we have done in the past, but it is good to stay in the present. We need to move forward. There is not one Member in the House, of all political parties and none, who does not want to solve the housing crisis. I do not think anybody is motivated in any other way but to try to solve the issue. It is something we are all unified on.

The LDA will provide services, as directed by local authorities, in order to assist them in the performance of their functions relating to the development of sites for housing in urban development in population centres of more than 30,0000. That will not impact the primary role of local authorities as housing authorities. We should have a debate based on the facts. The LDA will establish a register of relevant public lands. To me, that is massive. Finally, we will know all the land in every county that is owned by the State. That has not been done properly in Ireland to date. It is really important. If we do not know where the land is, we cannot even start to begin to solve the housing crisis.

On the Green Party's win on this, it is important that all parties in government agreed with the proposal that went to Cabinet that 100% of housing built by the LDA on public land will be social and affordable. That is huge. It is a great success. In other local authorities, it will be at least 70%. Today is a good day. It is a positive step forward in dealing with the housing crisis. It is only the beginning of sorting it. We have so much to do now in getting people to come to terms with the fact that there is a shortage of the tradesmen who we will need to build these houses. There is a huge body of work to do to promote the work of tradesmen and to encourage young people to move into the trades so that we can get these houses built. There are also 220,000 empty houses in the State that we need to look at getting back into use so that we can increase people's opportunities to have homes again. The serviced sites that were promised in the town centre first policy, that we all agreed in the programme for Government, need to be delivered.

I welcome the Bill. I look forward to progressing it, rolling up my sleeves and getting the houses built that we need.