Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank Mr. Oonan and Deputy Wallace for the work on the Bill and Professor Drudy and Mr. Reynolds for their presentation. I apologise but I had to pop out to do a quick radio interview earlier. I have a comment and one question.

There is considerable frustration, and Professor Drudy will share this more than most because he will remember this better than some of the allegedly younger people in the room. Every time we have a housing boom, there is an extensive public debate about the rising cost of land, there is public consternation, there are debates in the Oireachtas, and many sensible proposals are put forward. Then the crisis ebbs and people forget about it. In 1972, we had the report of the committee on the price of land. In the 1980s, we had an Oireachtas committee report on the price of land. In the 1990s, we had an Oireachtas committee on the constitutional provisions on private property rights and it related to land. Each one of those reports made recommendations not dissimilar to some of what we are discussing today. People spend a great deal of time talking about them and then they are just ignored, the cycle then dips and goes again. We must deal with this. This Oireachtas has to deal with the issue of land. As Deputy Wallace will be aware, Sinn Féin is supportive of the Bill and believes it is one of the elements of it.

We do not talk enough about land and why land speculation is driving up house prices. Deputy Wallace correctly states that land hoarding is part of it, but the other big part of it at present is that decisions to change the tax code that were made by Deputy Noonan when he was Minister for Finance have created considerable incentives for new flows of capital into the country to invest in land. Deputy Wallace has done a considerable amount of work on what those flows of money were doing with NAMA and commercial properties, but now that much of the distressed assets from the commercial property crash have been bought and sold, we are seeing that money wash its way into the residential sector. Deputy Wallace's Bill relates directly to the United Nation's special rapporteur's letter to the Government and its critique of financialisation, because the reason that money can now wash into the residential sector and invest in secure long-term land is because they pay no tax on their capital gains or on their rent roll, if and when they build. If they are structured in certain ways, they do not even pay dividend withholding tax to their shareholders if they are non-resident overseas investors. We have billions of euro entering the residential property market that are completely untaxed. In the best-case scenario, they are hit with a 20% dividend withholding tax, but they still pay no tax on capital gains or on their rent roll. The idea that one comes in, buys, builds, rents and then sells and the Exchequer gets nothing should be a cause for alarm. Of course, what else would this money do but invest in land and drive up the prices. That is why Deputy Wallace is correct. The levy must be punitive because that is what we are talking about in the first instance. That is why we are right to support the Bill.

Like all of the other Bills from the Opposition, bar one or two, that we have passed in this committee, the money message will be the killer. Deputy Wallace stated that his correspondence from the Ceann Comhairle stated that it was the final section of the Bill that was the one that they felt required the money message. It would be great if the Deputy would share that correspondence with the committee for our own deliberations. I wonder if there is a mechanism. If that section was not in the Bill, does Deputy Wallace as its author think the Bill would still have much of the value? Is there another mechanism for us as a committee were we to decide in private session to communicate to the Ceann Comhairle that to proceed to Committee Stage, we would lose that part of the Bill that requires a money message? The Ceann Comhairle might say that is not in accordance with procedure. I am trying to find a way around the money message obstacle but I do not want to propose something in private session that creates a difficulty for the Bill and Deputy Wallace as its author. I would like the Deputy's view on that.