Cian O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for attending. They have made some strong and clear contributions, which is useful. They are almost making the case for not taking this type of approach at all to land value sharing, and saying it is an indirect approach, full of risks in how it could impact on the market. They are convincing me that a much more direct approach is needed, whereby we should go to the Kenny report, acquire land by compulsory purchase order, CPO, avoid these indirect approaches to taxation, capture the value uplift there and then, use that to fund infrastructure and then release it, for all types of housing, including to small builders, larger builders and everything else, because something like this is inherently risky. I do not expect the witnesses to agree with what I just said, which is just my take on it.

I heard earlier in some of the contributions that this would possibly work if it were directly tied to the rezoning point in order that it could not be at risk, at the later stages, of being tied in to planning, development and the price of housing. That is a high risk that not only the witnesses have identified but that others have done as well, and I would be very concerned about it. If that happens, that will create an issue for someone who bought the land with a view to getting it rezoned for this. Perhaps they will have the resources to deal with this, and certainly if they are getting a substantial uplift from the sale of the land, they might be able to factor that in from the rezoning point of view and so forth. If, however, it is someone who owns the land in any event, such as a farmer, and if the land is rezoned and the owner has no intention of selling it any time soon, they will not necessarily have the resources to pay the land value sharing tax at that point. They will not necessarily be able to get finance to do it and so on. The challenge, if this were tied in only at that point in time, relates to how existing owners, who may not want to sell or release the land at that point, will deal with it.

I fully agree with the point about how any measures such as this have to be directly tied in to expenditure on providing infrastructure for those sites where this tax is applied. It would be very unfair to the landowners if it were not done that way, and also to the wider community.

On the issue of small builders exiting, is acquiring land and getting sites part of the problem for them? Is there any more evidence of or insight into the reasons they are leaving?