Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I will not speak at length about this section. I note that we are extending another tax relief through the living city initiative which has been bedevilled by delays and changes. Initially it applied to two areas and Georgian buildings only. It was then extended to six areas and all pre-1915 buildings were made eligible. The commercial element was removed and it was made available to landlords. The state aid rules came into effect and changed the whole initiative again. Throughout there has been an extremely low uptake. We are talking about 20 applications per annum. In the entire lifetime of the scheme there have been three applications in Galway. Is there a genuine case for continuing the scheme which is being kept on a lifeline? I remember the then Minister for Finance, Deputy Michael Noonan, saying some things worked and some did not, but this scheme was worth the risk. Is it simply not working? If so, why are we extending it? There has been a very low uptake.