Cian O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

On there being a multiplicity of landowners, there are issues in terms of master plans. The way they deal with that in the Netherlands is that when a CPO is imposed on land, if part of that land is designated by the landowner to be parkland, he or she gets compensated at an average price on the basis of what is being paid to the other landowners in that area where it might be a residential development. That is why I made the point earlier about a multiplicity of landowners.

We might look back 200 years to the Wide Streets Commission in this city. The reason we have O'Connell Street, Dame Street and D'Olier Street is because there was a multiplicity of landowners involved. The city was never going to be able to get agreement to widen those streets and erect new buildings so it effectively imposed a CPO on the lot, came up with a master plan and did it. That is why we have the kind of city centre we all recognise and know today. It simply would not have happened otherwise. I marvel at the ability to be able to do that in the city 200 years ago. When it comes to housing now, however, we are not able to do it.

More recently, the CPOs I referenced earlier were in respect of social housing. In Kilbarrack, a CPO was imposed to take the land from private landowners. It actually had planning permission in place for private housing and the city council still managed to CPO the land to put in social housing and other infrastructure. That was done under the current Constitution by the State. These powers have been used extensively to deliver housing and infrastructure at the scale that is needed. That was all done constitutionally. I am surprised then when we are told it cannot be done because it has been done in Ireland. That is the point I was trying to make.

I have a quick question on the way will potentially be done. A farmer may have farmland that is zoned residential and the site value tax is now being applied to that land because it is zoned as such. The farmer can apply to get that rezoned to agricultural land because that is what he or she uses and wants it for. That then potentially puts the farmer at a disadvantage because while that land is not currently liable for land value sharing tax, it will be in the future should it get rezoned again from agricultural to residential. That would be an incentive against people looking for the zoning to fit their current use, which is one of the incentives of the site value tax. Do I have that right? I appreciate that there might not be a huge number of those situations but there certainly are some around the country.