Steven Matthews (Wicklow, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I was happy to see the vacant homes tax introduced for the first time last year, although at too low a rate. I was very pleased to see it increase to where we thought it should be placed last year. I was also happy to see the zoned land tax introduced last year as a land activation measure. Its aim is to stimulate the use of that land, or to have it sold on to somebody who is going to use it, and not just leave it there zoned, serviced and not providing the purpose for which it was zoned by councillors in the area. I am disappointed to see it pushed out by a year. I would like to know the reasoning and rationale behind it being pushed out for a year.

I am aware of farmland that was zoned for residential use and which now falls under this zoned land tax, and of farmers who want to continue farming that land. They do not want to sell it off, develop it or put housing on it. They are actively farming it. I sense a reluctance, in many cases, to dezone it because zoning as residential provides great value on that land as well. I am conscious that we need to tease that out and see how it can be done.

With regard to what the land is being used for, we need to start looking at consolidating towns and making sure we do not have what we had in planning for years; namely, leapfrogging over land that was not being developed, and the sprawl, social and climate issues that arise from that. We certainly need to look at land, in a way. We cannot make more of it, and we cannot move it around. It is a different kind of good than many others.

I am also conscious that we are bringing in the Land Value Sharing and Urban Development Zones Bill 2022, which seeks to ensure a 30% return to the State when one changes from the current market use to the new use - residential, industrial and whatever it might be afterwards - and one gets that value uplift in it. I am conscious that we need to get this right. If it takes a year to get it right, and next year we are coming back with a revision in the finance Bill that will provide us with clarity in the case of actively farmed land when somebody wants to keep it farmed but not keep the value on it, I think I am fine with that.

Where the land is serviced, a question has arisen as to whether it is necessarily serviced to the capacity where it can serve what it has been zoned for. It may be serviced to the extent that there is mains water and power to it, and wastewater, but is it at the capacity to be able to deal with 300 to 500 houses going on it, or whatever it might be? I understand there probably needs to be a little bit of work around that.

I am interested to know what prompted the 12-month suspension of this, and the reasons and rationale behind that.