Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy. At present, the sectors, technologies and activities covered by the proposed legislation are very precisely aligned with the EU regulation in order to have consistency across the EU. Land and real estate relating to critical infrastructure are already included in the Bill. Any addition to the list of notifiable transactions will increase the complexity of the screening regime. I am anxious that we have as much alignment with our EU partners, that we have as much certainty and clarity for stakeholders as possible and that we minimise unnecessary complexity. The addition of the phrase "land that could be used for housing" could potentially result in every single real estate transaction being notified because all land and real estate could potentially be used for housing. If all of those transactions were to be notified, many of them would be turned down or blocked on security grounds. There are other instruments to try to change housing policy. What we are trying to do with this legislation is keep it as tight as possible in relation to those areas that are already outlined in EU policy. We do not want to expand beyond that.