Local authority landbanks
Deputy Munster pressed for rental strategy measures on landbanks held by local authorities and criticised the lack of data on zoned social housing land. The Minister said an audit of State lands was under way and that the rental strategy would push more proactive use of public landbanks for mixed-tenure development.
Will the Minister in his rental strategy address the issue of landbanks held by local authorities for housing? I know from his reply to a parliamentary question that the Minister does not have any data on it, which is quite worrying. It is a grievous error that in the depths of a housing crisis the Department has not collated the landbanks local authorities have zoned for social housing. When will the Minister's rental strategy be published and when will we have an opportunity to debate it in the Dáil?
Comment on this
On the landbank issue, we have an audit under way not only of local authority lands, but of all State-owned lands whether in semi-State companies, State agencies or, indeed, local authorities. We need to get that full picture. I hope that we will then make decisions to transfer lands between agencies, in particular for some of the new social housing projects. Part of our rental strategy next week, if it is approved by Government, will involve a much more proactive use of publicly-owned landbanks with a view to creating mixed-tenure developments sooner rather than later and to use the leverage local authorities have because of the landbanks they own. Many local authorities have a great deal of land available to them to do that. In terms of when the rental strategy will be launched, I hope to get approval from the Government next Tuesday. We will publish it immediately after that.