Dr. Ronan Lyons:

The major dysfunction in the land market has less to do with land banking and more to do with NAMA. NAMA sells land to the highest bidder, regardless of whether the bidder is going to build any properties on it. Thereby, once they have sold that at €2 million per acre in this area, that becomes the benchmark price. Anyone willing to build on it is prepared to pay an awful lot less. That is the ultimate dysfunction, as Mr. Deeter mentioned. The lack of a site value tax on all land is causing this speculation in the land market. Ultimately, the price of land is residual. It will just reflect whatever we are allowed to build on top of it, but in the NAMA model - the lack of a land value tax model - it is not quite that.