Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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1176. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government if contact had been made between his Department and the EU Director General for Competition on the issue of the Land Development Agency since the conclusion of pre-legislative scrutiny of the Land Development Agency Bill 2019 by the Houses of the Oireachtas committee on housing, planning and local government; if so, the details of the contact; and if correspondence arising from same will be published. [8557/20]

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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The Department’s approach, based on advice to date, is that the economic functions of the Land Development Agency (LDA) do not give rise to an advantage either to the LDA or other parties under State Aid rules. The General Scheme of the Land Development Agency Bill 2019 was developed taking account of legal advice in relation to State Aid. 

A General Scheme of the Land Development Agency Bill to establish the LDA as a commercial state body on a primary legislative basis was approved by Government for publication, consideration for pre-legislative scrutiny and priority drafting in July 2019. The pre-legislative scrutiny process is now complete and the Committee's report has been received by my Department and is being considered in the context of the further development of the proposed legislative provisions. 

The European Commission was informed about the Land Development Agency at the time of its establishment in August 2018. The next step will be a structured engagement with the Commission through its informal preliminary procedure. This will be based on information from the LDA on its business model as well as the draft LDA Bill, when approved by Government, outlining the nature and role and functions of the LDA. This structured engagement is consistent with the approach taken in relation to other commercial state bodies and reflects the specific nature of the LDA.