Mr. Conor O'Connell:

Absolutely. We are currently conducting a survey of members and we have some individual examples. With the permission of the Chair and the committee, we would like to submit those details after the hearing. We are also assessing the urban development zone Bill, so that is why we did not comment on it. I will give some of examples of how it is a tax on the output. A builder takes land through the planning process. A land speculator never does. The way the tax is currently proposed, it is applied at the planning stage, or post the grant of planning. Who applies for planning? It is the builder. No one else is going to spend several hundred thousand euro taking a piece of land through the planning process. It is the builder because that is their business model. They buy land as raw material, take it through the planning process and then build on it and sell the homes to whoever.

Regarding the estimate, we are looking at 30% of the uplift. If you take an average price per acre for zoned land - I am going to use acres rather than hectares, with the Chair's permission - of €250,000 or €300,000 up to €500,000, the existing agricultural use of that land, depending on where it is in the country, could be €10,000 or €15,000. Taking 30% of that uplift or difference would mean at least €8,000 per unit. The medium range is probably somewhere between €8,000 and €15,000 payable as it is currently worded post the grant of planning. If we cannot add that input cost to the land that has already been purchased, then it is going to have to be factored into the line-by-line item of the assessment by the funders. If we cannot add that on to the price of the unit or house, the builder will go out of business and cannot develop the lands. That is the estimate and that is how we worked out that estimate. We are getting more examples and we would gladly share them with the committee.