Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Yes. The Deputy is correct and I have tried to explain the rationale behind it. I will give it another go. The rationale is twofold, the first point being that we are no longer dealing with houses that have a basement. We did not want to have a commercial operation going into an entire Georgian building, where potential living quarters in a Georgian house or relevant house could end up being diminished and used for commercial operation. We have extended that to consider single-storey dwellings. There is not the same synergy as having the commercial element downstairs and the residential part upstairs. It is like comparing apples and oranges in that regard.

Second, it is important when talking about living cities that there is the provision of local services. We are moving to a situation where a single dwelling is coming into play. I have made clear, and the cap on the relief makes clear, that we are not talking large-scale commercial activity but provision of local services is an important part of a living city. People will not live in cities without service provision. It is a complex area but, with regard to the previous scenario, we were talking about a very specific type of dwelling and we are now broadening the types of dwellings.