Mr. Patrick Davitt:

Many of our members in rural Ireland would deal with farmers every day of the week in letting land, buying land, selling land, renting houses, and selling of farmhouses and so on. The way we look at it today, in any of these transactions there are three different sides to it. There is the owner of the property, there is the purchaser of the property, and there are the new grants that the Minister is speaking about at the moment. If a property owner has a property and has had it for many years, at the particular time they got it, it could have been valued down as low as €10,000. If there was no valuation prior to 1984 - we go back as far as 1984 - we would just double that figure to €20,000. Today, however, that property is worth €100,000. There is €80,000 of a capital gain there, with 33% of that due to the Government, which is almost €30,000 due to the Government in tax for capital gains on the property if that owner sells the property. First, we must look at the owner and see the capital gains that we are talking about. I am considering a very simple transaction here to give the committee an example, the property could be worth more than that. We would look at something that would encourage the owner of that property to sell it. A lot of people have these properties but will not sell them because they are caught with the tax. We then must consider the person who is buying the property. The purchaser may want to buy the property but when he or she goes to the bank the bank will say "There are no services on this property". There may well be no bathroom or toilet, and there may not be various different things that other people would want in their houses. It is not about having a swanky house, it is about having the main services that they need. Until such time as the services are put in place, the bank will not mortgage the property. Then, let us consider the grants that are there at the moment. The grants are fine and are very good but they are not much good to somebody if they cannot buy the property. So we have a situation where we cannot get the owner to sell the property, and the person who wants to buy the property cannot get the money, then the grant is not achievable. What good is it if a person cannot get it? We do not need to look at the grants on their own. We need to look at the whole scenario and the whole picture. The picture we are trying to present is that capital gains is the first issue for most people because they do not want to pay that tax.

The second issue is the mortgage. That is why we are asking the Minister to amend the Credit Union (Amendment) Bill 2022 to allow credit unions to give a bridging loan to these people first so they can buy those properties. Then, when they get their grants and so on to do up the properties, they can turn that bridging loan into a mortgage of 25 or 30 years for that particular property. The Government could set up a fund of perhaps €1 million and all the credit unions in the country, of which there are more than 200, could give this money out to people who want to get a bridging loan because that is one of the most important steps.

Returning to capital gains, we are saying to the Government and the Minister that if they want to get the derelict figures down, the owners of these properties must be able to sell their properties. They must be encouraged. There is no point in just having a big stick and telling them they will be charged 3% a year if they do not do this or that. We need to get them to sell and therefore we need to incentivise them. We are saying there should be an amnesty from capital gains tax for one or two years to get these people into tune to enable them to sell their properties. If they do that, at least the property will be back in the marketplace. The other two scenarios, the purchaser and the grants, can then come into place. We read every day of the week how the credit unions are much cheaper than ordinary pillar banks for loans. They are involved in every town in the country and at least when people go into a credit union they can speak to a manager. In the case of the bank, it has probably closed and when we do go into one, where would we get a manager? At least the credit union is a friendly bank that is available to meet and talk to people. This is a perfect proposal and solution to the scenario at the moment.