Dublin City Council's strategic development zone, SDZ, master plan for the Poolbeg lands was approved in 2019. The SDZ will provide a much-needed 3,500 new homes on the site, as well as economic opportunity and social amenities. Thanks to a very determined campaign by the Irish Glass Bottle Housing Action Group, the SDZ plan includes a commitment to deliver 15% of these homes at affordable prices. As I am sure the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, knows, that is in addition to the 10% social housing required under Part V of the Planning and Development Act 2000, as amended.

It is absolutely vital that these affordable homes are delivered if the working people of Ringsend, Irishtown and the wider surrounding area are to have any hope of remaining living in their community. Property prices in this part of Dublin city have spiralled well beyond the reach of even well-paid local people. In fact, a quick scan of daft.ie for new and second-hand homes in Ringsend and Irishtown will reveal prices from €500,000 to €1 million. In order to ensure the homes built on this portion of the SDZ land are genuinely affordable, Dublin City Council wanted to buy the Irish Glass Bottle site from the National Asset Management Agency, NAMA, at a discount. In 2019, NAMA agreed and, in turn, Dublin City Council officials approached the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage to approve the finance. NAMA offered land at a discount of between 40% and 60% of the full market value. This would have allowed the council to dramatically reduce the development cost and, in turn, the price for the affordable purchaser.

After a month of talks between Dublin City Council and the Department and a number of very detailed submissions from the council to it, the Department rejected the proposal and refused to fund the land purchase. In fact, I understand a last-minute intervention by a member of the NAMA board to the then Minister, Eoghan Murphy, failed to break the deadlock. Unfortunately, due to inaction by the then Minister, the Irish Glass Bottle site was rolled up with the larger Poolbeg lands and put on the open market. Ronan Group Real Estate, along with its financial backers, bought an 80% stake in those lands in 2020, at a significant increase on the guide price. Now Dublin City Council has to negotiate a deal with Ronan Group Real Estate for the delivery of the hundreds of homes the SDZ plan says must be affordable.

Dublin City Council's director of housing, Mr. Brendan Kenny, last week publically expressed concern at the prices Ronan Group Real Estate is likely to charge for those properties. There is now a genuine fear, not only in the city council and among councillors from all parties who supported the SDZ, but also in the wider community in Ringsend and Irishtown, that these affordable homes could well be lost.

Was the Minister aware that NAMA offered these lands at a discount to Dublin City Council? Does he agree it was a huge mistake for the then Minister with responsibility for housing and Deputy for the constituency, Eoghan Murphy, not to sanction the purchase of the Irish Glass Bottle site by Dublin City Council? Will he now support the local community which is urging his Government to ensure NAMA transfers its 20% land holdings in the Poolbeg SDZ to Dublin City Council to ensure the 600 to 650 affordable homes earmarked for the site will be delivered and sold at prices working people can genuinely afford?

I was made aware by both the city council and NAMA of the history, as the Deputy outlined, of the development of the affordable element of housing on that site. To my mind, it was not the correct decision. I would have made a different one but the decision is made. The critical issue now is that we deliver the affordable housing and the social housing which will be delivered under Part V. I absolutely agree with the Deputy that in this area of the city in particular local communities face the real risk of being excluded from being able to have their children or relatives live in the community they grew up in because it happens to be an area of such rapid development. With the very welcome arrival of large companies in the docklands and their workers being in the same market and area, there is a real risk local communities will be frozen out. We must do everything to avoid that possibility. This includes using the serviced sites fund, which is provided for situations just like this. It will be able to help to reduce costs, although perhaps not as much as we would have liked or as much as might have been possible had a different land deal arrangement been done. However, that should not stop us doing it.

We should not stop there. There are other lands and approaches we can take involving the Land Development Agency, the State and a variety of State bodies. Dublin Port is adjacent to this land and has a very large land bank. I will be talking to the Dublin Port Company to see what it could possibly do to help us in this regard. This applies to other sites as well. Across my constituency, this problem of house price and rental cost inflation is most acute. Consequently, we must do our utmost to reverse this or provide alternatives, and we will do that.

What we cannot and do not want to do is delay is the delivery of the houses on the Irish Glass Bottle site. It has full planning permission and will be able to get serviced sites funding. We will be able to get that social housing as part of the Part V procedure. We have been waiting too long for this to be built. It is now ready to go, subject, as the Deputy said, to agreement between the developer and the council. The State will do whatever we can to help deliver the housing but we must deliver it quickly because we have a housing crisis in that part of the city that we must address. We can and will address it.

Both Dublin City Council and the local community need the Government to get more directly involved to resolve this dispute. There is approximately €80 million of public funds earmarked for infrastructure in the strategic development zone. Of that, €15 million is from the Minister's own Department, which is co-funding the bridge to complete the south docks. There is up to €20 million in funding from the urban regeneration and development fund, URDF, allocated to the Seán Moore bridge and roundabout. The Minster is absolutely right that we could use the serviced sites fund. We recently had news that the unit cost of that could be increased so that could be €30 to €60 million. That gives the Minister's Government a lot of leverage to sit down with Dublin City Council and the local community to ensure the offer made by Ronan Group Real Estate is a genuine one. That is a significant discount that could be got on those homes. Equally, NAMA's 20% land holdings could be transferred to Dublin City Council as, for example, an advance payment on the dividend it will eventually provide for the State, cutting out the land cost completely.

If the Minister, along with his ministerial colleagues, Deputies Paschal Donohoe and Darragh O'Brien, put their shoulders to the wheel alongside Dublin City Council officials, councillors and the local community, we could ensure that not only would those homes be delivered speedily but we would also have affordable homes at prices local people can afford.

The Deputy is right to focus on the fact that transport and housing solutions go together and this is a really good example. We now have plans for this new bridge across the Dodder. It will not be a bridge for cars but for public transport and active mobility. It is critical not just for the development for the Irish Glass Bottle site but the wider area. It is due to go for planning permission as part of the BusConnects project, which I hope will go to An Bord Pleanála this autumn. Subject to that being agreed, it does not have to wait for a decision from An Bord Pleanála and we should not tie it up with a decision around the land in Poolbeg because we need it anyway for the local community.

It is the same with the development of the upgrade of the Seán Moore Road. In a wider context - I know it is a contentious issue and I have to be careful because it will be before the courts this week - there is the question of the development on the Strand Road and elsewhere of bay and coastal infrastructure. This includes walking and cycling routes and it could bring profound improvement to the area. It is a very special place because it is on the Dublin Bay biosphere. It is an amazing location with beautiful beaches beside the wildlife reserve. We need transport infrastructure not just for the Irish Glass Bottle site but the other sites developed in the area and the existing community. I do not want to make that contingent on what any developer does.