Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)

On the living city initiative, as was mentioned, it has not worked. The low take-up is an example of how it has not worked. We have had numerous iterations of and changes to this, such as accelerated reliefs. It started off as ten years and it is now seven. We had additional cities and maps changed and still the number of claimants is quite low. The cost of this is €1 million or something like that. It is very small in relation to the actual figure. The figure I have for 2022 is 89 claimants at a cost of €1.1 million. The changes the Minister is bringing forward are quite substantial. The fact the Bill has moved from pre-1915 to pre-1975 buildings is very significant. It is a huge expansion.

I had to pop out to speak in the Dáil so if I am asking questions that have been asked and answered I will look back at the transcripts later but if not, I ask the Minister to talk to us about why he chose 1975 as a point in time. We know that if we look at the housing stock within the State, of all houses in the State, 9% was built before 1919. By expanding this to 1975, we take in another 23%, that is, one quarter of housing stock. That obviously does not apply across the State but within the designated areas. Nonetheless, it is quite significant.

I diverge, but when we look at this graph, we can see that 25% of our existing housing stock was built within ten years. It shows how terribly the Government has been doing over the past while when housing is a crisis. We have the ability to really wrap it up but that is another issue.

This is quite a large expansion, so will the Minister tell us why the year 1975 was identified? Also, the Minister is allowing for commercial premises that are developed into rented residential elements. The commercial and rented residential elements are now being amended to allow for an enhanced capital relief system of over two years, as opposed to seven years for the rest. What is the policy consideration for that? If the Minister believes it is necessary to go to two years for those elements, why not have two years for everything? I am not advocating for two years for everything but am interested in the assessment the Department has made.

In regard to the age profile of these buildings, I hear what colleagues have said abut dereliction. I know Letterkenny is to be added to this and I will speak about that in a second. There are derelict buildings, particularly in parts of the centre of Letterkenny. One derelict building creates a situation where we end up with more and more of them. This will apply to buildings that are not derelict as well but are now being upgraded and refurbished for residential or rental elements above a shop, or indeed an entire commercial building being changed into residential, as far as I understand. In terms of commercial to residential, there are no age limits whatsoever. Will the Minister explain his thinking on that? I think the legislation talks about the rateable premises. Does that mean that, within the catchment area, a commercial building that was built maybe two years ago and is rateable could actually avail of this? Could the person who built the commercial building and left it as a shell avail of this? Could a person who is building a commercial building today avail of this scheme in two years' time to benefit from the living city initiative, because there is an extension to five years? They may leave the upper part of the building gutted to allow for the refurbishment to be able to fall under this scheme which allows for up to €300,000 of an allowance in terms of their tax bill?

When we dealt with all of the variations of the initiative, there were very clear anti-avoidance mechanisms put into this, and that mechanism was that developers and connected parties were not able to benefit from this. That has now changed. Developers and connected parties will be able to benefit from this in certain circumstances. Will the Minister speak to that? There are quite a number of questions there but I am sure the officials have taken a note of them.

In regard to the designation of the new areas, obviously we are dealing with the Finance Bill and the Minister announced in the budget that a number of other areas, including Letterkenny, Sligo, Dundalk, Athlone and Drogheda will be included in this. I am interested to hear why those areas were selected. I know all of the areas, but I know some of them well, or better than others. There is absolutely a need for regeneration in parts of those areas but I also know towns that are not too far away from them that equally need the same. If the Minister believes in this, why are we not applying this more broadly?