Mr. Brian Moran:

The analysis is correct. The reality is that approximately one sixth of taxpayers can afford the high-density apartments either to rent or purchase. It is therefore a small cohort, given the cost of developing them. The Project Emerald report by the Department of Finance lays that out very clearly. The Deputy is therefore absolutely correct; there is no residual land value except for a certain cohort.

Incentives, such as Croí Cónaithe and shared equity are absolutely essential. The successful roll-out of those will bring down and produce new viability points for a greater cohort of income earners. There are obviously the social and affordable aspects of it as well where the State comes in and takes on a part of that development. There are therefore initiatives coming through. We are an apartment developer, so we have large sites that we have to evaluate. Current interest rates costs have obviously impacted that significantly, but without large European pension funds being available and keeping the market attractive for them, there is no source of capital to fund these projects.

One of the concerns I have with this proposal is that we will scare away those pension funds because of the uncertainty around the risk of a tax in a situation that actually does not have any value. They are very nervous about it.

I refer to phasing long-term implementation. Although the concept is good, in the long term we must be very careful that applying a one-size-fits-all solution to a whole variety of types of developments all over the country could be very difficult.