Mary Upton (Dublin South Central, Labour)
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Question 467: To ask the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government if public land management supported through widespread compulsory purchase has been introduced here since the report of the National Economic and Social Council in 2004; his views on the creation of huge landbanking which influenced the housing bubble here; his further views on the impact that this might have had if it had been used to provide social and affordable housing; if there are plans to introduce such a scheme in the future; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [4670/09]

John Gormley (Dublin South East, Green Party)
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The National Economic and Social Council Report Housing in Ireland: Performance and Policy, published in late 2004, highlighted the importance of active land management as one of the key elements of the policy framework required to respond to the challenges arising in the housing area, while indicating that a significant element of active land management already existed in practice.

Active land management strategies have since been put in place by local authorities to manage their own land banks. It is intended that these strategies will be rolled forward on an annual basis to ensure that local authorities continue to pursue a planned and strategic approach towards meeting the land requirements for their social and affordable housing programmes. In addition, where appropriate, it is open to individual local authorities to acquire land by compulsory purchase for their housing programmes. Considerable investment has been made in servicing of land, and the 9th housing land availability survey, undertaken in June 2007, indicated that there was 15,100 hectares of zoned serviced land nationally, with an estimated yield of 469,937 housing units.

In the context of the forthcoming Planning and Development (Amendment) Bill, the Government also proposes to introduce, as a possible alternative to compulsory acquisition, the possibility for planning authorities to impose an annual development incentive levy on designated land.