Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

I understand that following Committee Stage the Minister, Deputy Lenihan, considered the issue. The Department examined the development plan in question in regard to Westport and as Deputy Ring will be well aware, there are lands other than the heritage site which are also proposed to be rezoned from non-development land to development land. We are not only concerned here with an individual site.

Regarding the date of application, which is 30 October 2009, and rezonings made after that, if we introduced this amendment it would impact on 18 draft development plans and 50 local area plans. We are not talking about an isolated incident in this case. I also understand that if we were to make the exemption just for heritage sites it may be difficult to defend legally. I am aware Deputy Bruton raised all of these issues on Committee Stage.

I understand also there are three different criteria for the windfall tax: rezonings made after 30 October; an increase in the land valuation related to the rezoning; and land sold after 30 October 2009. Given the current depressed property market, all those conditions may not occur but they may be relevant-----

See this speech in context