Government must do more to increase building on brownfield sites – Martin

The Government must do more to stimulate the building of apartments on brownfield sites, the Taoiseach has said.

Micheal Martin conceded there was currently not enough redevelopment of urban sites that have previously been built on.

Mr Martin declined to be drawn on whether the Government would seek to incentivise developers with tax breaks in the autumn budget but he acknowledged there was a need for more private sector investment.

He highlighted that the taxpayer was already paying to boost redevelopment of such sites through state subsidisation.

“The first point I would make is we do need more private sector investment, and I think we need to work on what’s the optimum mechanisms and policy instruments we can use to bring more private sector investment into the building of apartments, particularly in brownfield sites,” he said.

“I’ve heard a lot about brownfield sites and watched it over the last while, number of years, and essentially what’s happening now is the state is intervening in significant subsidisation.”

He added: “We’re going to work collectively on it. We’re going to work through what’s the most effective way to do it.

“The budget is some way off. In the short term, however, the state will continue to invest significantly in terms of, through the expenditure side, pump prime or enable state money to be a catalyst for private sector building, alongside maybe work that the approved housing bodies are doing and so forth.”

Asked if he favoured introducing new tax breaks for developers, he replied: “I’m not going to go into the specifics right now. But I’m clear that we need more than existing policies to make sure that we can get real traction on brownfield sites, because it’s not happening to the degree or at the volumes that we require.

“We need to be building far more, faster. And it’s good if you get brownfield sites going because, of course, all the services are there. It’s good for the cities – be it Dublin, Galway, Limerick, Waterford, Cork.

“It makes absolute sense from an environmental and from a climate perspective.”