Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I am concerned that people may abuse the scheme for the wrong reasons. I continue to oppose the section because I do not know what the Minister has in mind in this regard. Will a person who moves out of a house for six months to live in private rental accommodation fulfil the criterion that his or her home has not been in use as a dwelling immediately prior to the conversion? In such circumstances, a person could spend €100,000 having a house converted and subsequently have the entire sum written off his or her tax bill over a ten year period. Will a one or two year period of non-residence apply?

Given the sums involved, people will be willing to move out of their homes to have their costs written off. If I have a two-storey house in Dublin city centre which I can convert into two homes, I will be prepared to move out for one year on the basis that the €200,000 in renovation costs will be written off my tax bill. People will take this option and given that guidelines come after the fact, Deputies are not in a position to evaluate what is the intention of the measure or how restrictive it will be.

I accept it is not intended that the scheme will be open to abuse. The decision to extend the scheme for Georgian houses introduced in last year's Finance Act to pre-1915 houses creates a greater risk of abuse. The legislation dealing with Georgian houses was much more restrictive as the number of occupied Georgian houses is small. Many of the pre-1915 houses in the designated areas are occupied, however. Given the uncertainty surrounding this legislative provision, I am unable to support the measure.