Brian Hayes (Dublin South West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for raising this very important issue. I agree with him concerning the very significant announcement made in Limerick city at the tail end of last week about boosting that great city which, if one looks at the statistics as I did in preparation for this debate, has the highest overall rate of unemployment, including male unemployment, of each of the five gateway cities. There is a particular problem here that must be addressed. As the Deputy noted, the objective of the announcement made by the Minister for Finance in the Finance Act was to produce an incentive which is not developer-led, which encourages people not only to live in these great homes but also to produce 10% of the costs up-front, both for refurbishment purposes and to prove their bona fides. We are not going back to some kind of grandiose, entirely developer-led, tax incentive scheme where developers take no risk whatsoever. As the Deputy is well aware, a tax break or incentive is a form of subsidy which the general taxpayer has to make available. We have to use the scheme in a very focused way that encourages the regeneration and redevelopment of our great cities, in particular where there is either a difficulty in retail areas or, as in this case, where there are the great Georgian houses that are such a central feature of Waterford and Limerick cities.

We see this very much as a pilot scheme, as the Minister stated in the course of his remarks on Second and Committee Stages of the Finance Bill. He has made it clear he will look on this designation for other parts of the country and I can confirm to the Deputy there have already been submissions for a form of redesignation in other parts. That will obviously be a matter for the Minister in consultation with Cabinet colleagues in advance of any further Finance Bill. We need to learn the lessons of the past decade and a half where much of this work was developer-led, as the Deputy noted, and did not lead to any great advancement or additionality for our cities. On the contrary, it led to poor quality build, over use of apartments and a bad use of resources. To reiterate, this form of incentive was effectively a form of subsidy.

I very much hope we can proceed on an incremental basis in this regard. Whether this will be extended to other areas, such as the Deputy referred to, is a matter for the Minister. We will have an open mind and the policy will be reviewed on a constant basis in terms of the actual Finance Bill. My understanding is that Pobal, the State agency with responsibility for building up capacity in local communities and sending out statistics about levels of deprivation, has a very clear scoring methodology in its work. It has a myriad of measurements for deprivation. It would seem to me that in any further advancements or extensions of this scheme to areas throughout the country by way of tax incentives we should be mindful of the statistics and the evidence. We should be mindful of where the greatest rates of unemployment and deprivation lie and apply these tax breaks and incentives in a sparing but exact way towards that problem.

Obviously, I did not read the supplied speech.

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