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Many questions remain about Taoiseach's land swap housing plan

Issued : Thursday 23 June, 2005

Those unable to purchase a house will be forgiven if they react to the Taoiseach’s announcement on affordable housing today to the ICTU conference in Belfast with a considerable degree of scepticism.

July announcements by the Taoiseach on housing have now become as much a feature of the summer season as open air concerts. The Taoiseach made a similar announcement to the ICTU conference in Tralee on July 4, 2003 and he made essentially the same announcement to a meeting of the social partners in Dublin on July 13 last year.

In the interests of those desperately in need of housing I do hope that the Taoiseach’s announcement of today will actually lead to some tangible results, but we will need a lot more detail than the Taoiseach gave in his speech before final judgement can be passed.

I certainly have grave reservations about the Taoiseach’s proposal to gift public land at prime locations to property developers in return for land at they have at unidentified, but probably, remote locations. What the government appears to be doing here is encouraging office development at central locations while those who are going to work in these officers will be driven even farther out of the cities to find housing.

I wonder also if any cost benefit analysis has been done of this proposal. I suspect that the main financial beneficiaries will be the property developers.
I am seeking an independent cost benefit analysis of this proposal. What sites are to be ‘swapped’? What is the market value of these sites? What houses are to be provided and where and when? What is the net benefit, if any, taking into account any houses which might have been provided under Part V of the Planning and Development Act?.