Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 23 September 2025

Committee on Budgetary Oversight

Pre-Budget Engagement (Resumed)

2:00 am

Mr. Gerard Brady:

It is difficult in a dynamic environment to guarantee all the money ends up in the right place. There are two ways of doing it that might guarantee we get more of it. One is to do it as a rebate. We have VAT rebates in other areas. We could do a VAT rebate at the end of the process rather than at the start, so it is a rebate to the buyer rather than directly. The other way is to make sure we have zoned and serviced land. Serviced land is probably the biggest challenge there, in that we do not have enough serviced land. If we had more serviced land, the better we get at servicing more land and giving more serviced land out to the market, it will reduce the pressure on costs. If we do not fix those two in tandem, the VAT does not work without also fixing some of the infrastructure challenges, particularly on water, wastewater and grid.

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