PJ Murphy (Fine Gael)

I thank all the witnesses for coming in. I have found it an extremely informative meeting.

I have two questions. I will direct both to the Irish Home Builders Association. The first is on zoning. The culture of constraint within zoning and within the creation of county development plans and local development plans was mentioned earlier. Prior to being elected to the Seanad, I served a number of years on Galway County Council, where I was involved in county development plans and a number of local area plans in towns such as Loughrea, Gort and Kinvara. In all cases, councillors would have loved to have zoned a lot more land as residential but were prevented by core strategy and imposed NPF caps on residentially zoned areas. If, as is suggested, we are going to take some of the shackles off county councillors and local authorities by increasing the amount of land zoned as residential in reviews of local area and town plans over the next year or year and a half, should we also look at lifting a further shackle on local representatives considering zonings, namely, the zoned land tax? When I was a county councillor, our first consideration when doing town plans had to be the owner of the land. Did they have an intention to develop it? If not, were we by zoning their land nearly imposing a tax on these landowners or farmers who intended to continue farming their land? Do the witnesses see a continued role for the zoned land tax or has it served its purpose? Is it something we should consider parting with? I am asking for an opinion; I do not know.