asked the Minister for Local Government if he will take steps to ensure that more serviced land is made available in all towns and cities for building purposes, thus reducing the cost of land and eventually the price of houses by as much as £500 to £1,000 per house.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Building Land.
36.
I have repeatedly urged local authorities to ensure that adequate serviced land is made available for the various purposes for which it is needed, including housing. On 24th May last I asked housing authorities to take immediate steps to select and acquire sufficient sites to enable house building to proceed on a planned basis over a period of years. It will be one of the primary concerns of planning authorities in formulating their development plans to assess the needs of their areas for serviced land and, where necessary, to take action to ensure that these needs are met.
Is the Minister aware that in the past 12 to 18 months building sites for houses with a 30-foot frontage have gone up from £400 to £1,200, plus an increase in ground rent, and that this is due to the fact that serviced land is not being provided by the local authorities in Dublin?
I agree that there have been some spectacular rises in building land prices, particularly in Dublin but not confined to Dublin. I am aware also that the underlying cause of this is not so much that the local authorities are not acquiring land but that the amount of land serviced and available for building purposes is not as great in and around Dublin as it should be. This is the kernel of the problem.
Will the Minister take steps to see that there is more serviced land available?
I have already taken those steps and hope to get some worthwhile results in that direction. The only way in which I can deal with the situation is to ask the Dublin Corporation or the Dublin County Council to do this. I cannot initiate these steps myself. I have been acting along those lines over the past two or three years in regard to the drainage required for Dublin and its perimeter in order to make sufficient land available, and I shall continue to press that matter which is all I can do at this stage.