Housing talks stall over Green ‘issues with land agency’

GOVERNMENT talks on housing have stalled over the Green Party’s opposition to plans by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael to use the Land Development Agency (LDA) to try to fix the housing crisis.

A significant dispute has arisen between the Greens and the Civil War parties over the extent to which the Stateowned agency will use private developers to build 150,000 homes over the next two decades.

The LDA had become a “huge problem” for the Greens in the talks, one source said, while a second source confirmed housing policy in the draft programme for government had not been signed off “because there are issues with the LDA”.

The issue has been parked for further discussion later this week and, according to those with knowledge of the matter, it may be referred to the leaders of the three parties if their respective negotiating teams cannot break the impasse.

The LDA was set up by Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy in 2018 to source and acquire public lands owned by State agencies and local authorities to build 150,000 homes over the next 20 years.

The agency is tasked with ensuring that at least 40pc of housing built on a site is social and affordable (10pc social, 30pc affordable).

It has identified a number of sites for development including the Central Mental Hospital in Dundrum, which is earmarked for 1,200 new homes, and a 20-acre local authority site in Galway city, earmarked for 1,000 homes.

The Greens have been critical of the LDA since its inception, saying previously that it was not a move away from “failed market-led solutions”.

In the talks, the Green Party negotiators have raised concerns over the extent on which

private developers will be relied to deliver new homes, the majority of which will not be designated for social and affordable housing as well as concerns over the lack of transparency around the agency’s operations.

The Green Party’s core housing policy is that there should be large-scale building of public housing on public land and far greater use of the cost-rental model.

One source cited criticism of the agency by the housing expert Professor Rob Kitchin.

Speaking to an Oireachtas committee last year, he raised concerns that the LDA was set up on a commercial basis, is required to make a profit, and can ultimately be sold off by the State. There was no specific legal requirement to provide social and affordable homes, Prof Kitchin said, while also raising concerns about transparency, noting it was exempt from Freedom of Information requests.

The Fianna Fáil-Fine Gael framework document published in April said the LDA would be empowered and funded “to build homes on public and private land, to deliver new homes for affordable and private purchase, social housing, and cost-rental accommodation”.

Fine Gael argues the involvement of private developers is essential to delivering sufficient housing stock, including social and affordable housing.

“If the ideological opposition to building private housing is maintained, who is going to build these houses?

“There seems to be this leftof-centre view that if anybody is building on behalf of the State they shouldn’t make a buck,” a Fine Gael source said.

Fianna Fáil has previously expressed concerns over what it views as the Greens’ focus on rental accommodation over affordable homes for purchase.

A senior FF source said there was an opportunity for all parties in the next government to shape how the LDA operates because legislation to put it on a statutory footing had not been enacted. A draft bill reached pre-legislative scrutiny stage before the election was called in February.