Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Truth be told, somebody will some day have to address the issue of ownership and property rights in the Constitution. It seems to emerge on a regular basis as a reason for not doing the right thing far too often. We were looking at something similar when there was contemplation of implementing the findings of the Kenny report in the 1970s.

Some people would argue that our Constitution gives greater rights to property than it does to the individual. It does need to be addressed. It would be so much cleaner if, as I have argued before, we just set out to levy all land-banking, without any loopholes. It would do away with so much bureaucracy, it would be so much easier to determine, and there would be far less argument about it, but I can see that it is not going to happen today.

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