Seán Canney (Galway East, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome all the participants here, especially Ms Conway, who comes from Headford in my own constituency in Galway. I thank her for coming up here today. I declare my own vested interest. I own property and have my property is rented. I put that on the record.

Coming from a farming background, I believe there is a populist thing about land, wealth and tax, as well as how important it is to tax people who own land. People get confused about this, no more than we get confused between property owners and the investment funds. They are all put into the one pot and are all vilified for being in that market. Yet, if we did not have farmers, we would not have food, our produce or our exports. We have to level it all down and ask where we are going with all of this.

It was a mistake not to have farming representatives on the commission. When we look at the impact that farming has on the wider economy, it is important that that type of commission should have an input from people right across the board, who are doing a huge amount for our economy and who are creating so much wealth for other people in this country. It is important that we say that.

We could talk about the issue of housing all day, as well as what is right and wrong with it. We are good at bringing in laws, rules and regulations, but at the same time this creates more paperwork, and it does not get things done. For anybody who tries to buy, sell or rent a property, there is a lot of paperwork and the implications for doing all of that can be cumbersome. It slows things down and puts costs on.

We will go back to the issue we are talking about here. From the perspective of the Irish Property Owners' Association, its basic concern is that the private landlord is paying tax at 50% of what they take in, whereas the investor pays 0% or might pay 5%. Yet, there are tools by which they can recover that tax. That is something that needs to be resolved. Already in Galway there are probably 500 properties for sale by private landlords who want to get out of the market and who do not want to get back in again.

They want to get out and run away from it as fast as they can. That is something that would affect 500 families. These are 500 properties in which there are existing local authority tenants who are on the housing list but are housed in the private sector. If they were not, God knows where they would be housed. We must recognise and thank private property owners for doing that.

When we talk about the farming end of it and about property and housing, much of what the witnesses are saying is common to all of them. That is very important going forward. It is important when bringing the points across to the commission that as three organisations representing three different facets of life, there is an awful lot of commonality in what they are saying today.

The property tax on residential zoned land is something that has scared farmers out of their wits. It has been portrayed as something that will catch farmers. I know farmers whose land had been zoned residential and they knew nothing about it. A local area plan or county development plan was done and the land was zoned without their knowledge. The only way they would find out about it is if a vigilant county councillor said that by the way, this land is now zoned residential or commercial or whatever it is. Some people will say they never asked for that. Then, if it is going to be zoned residential, it seems to be like a backdoor compulsory purchase order, CPO, process to get that land to build houses on it without actually going through a CPO process because it is zoned, and especially if it is going to be taxed. There is no doubt about it that farmers have to be exempted from that. That is something we must put in place and keep very much to the forefront. I think Mr. Davitt and the Institute of Professional Auctioneers and Valuers would be of the same opinion on that. We have a consensus within the three representative groups.

The question for me is about farming the way it is and the way succession rights and all of that is going. Young farmers are not coming in to take over family farms. The issue is because there is a cost involved if a farm is being passed down. The programme for Government is trying to bring in the €500,000 threshold. That is a must at this stage. It is something we should be pushing for within the next budget. It is not something that is being talked about. The Government will shortly have been in power for three years so it is important that we get that going as well.

I am conscious that Deputy Patricia Ryan has to get in as well. I ask the witnesses for their comments on this, however. I come from an area where we have small family farms and where maybe 35, 40, 50 or 60 acres might be the average. We have the threat of rewetting lands and this kind of thing coming where land was reclaimed in the past. Now, there are threats of property tax and succession rights and additional taxes. This is not only squeezing farmers from the bog up, as I call it. What I mean by that is that the wetlands were reclaimed and the lands are also taxed because they have acreage. A serious recalibration needs to be done. We need to take the populism out of it. I will leave it there.