Mr. Roland O'Connell:

Perhaps we should be referring to square metreage. While that system would be the easiest to self-assess, it has all sorts of other drawbacks. The site value reference has many advantages on some points but one major disadvantage is that for instance, in the case of an apartment block, the site value for an individual apartment would be negative at present. It is very hard to assess a tax on a negative value. The society understands there are pros and cons in respect of all the methods. It is a matter for the policymakers to decide what is their priority and then to choose a correct method to reflect that priority. If the newspapers are to be believed, it appears as though we are heading towards a valuation based tax and if that be the case, so be it.