Paudie Coffey (Waterford, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I oppose amendment No. 17, which seeks to amend the provisions in section 14, which provide the criteria by which the planning authority or tribunal may deem that a vacant site has a zero market value. The amendment proposes to delete the following criteria:

(a) no market exists for the site, or

(b) the site is situated on contaminated lands and the estimated costs of remedial works necessary in order to use or develop the site exceed the market value of the site itself.

This is the key point: we must have a realistic economic development cost for sites, as Deputy Wallace knows only too well. Some scenarios arise whereby the land is so contaminated that the remedial works necessary to bring it back to a proper development site would exceed the market value of the site. In the interest of fairness, the Bill is drafted to ensure that if there are contaminated lands that require remedial work to that extent, the levy provisions are as fair and reasonable as possible. That does not preclude the local authority from engaging with the owners of those sites and does not preclude them from working with the owners to have those sites remediated, but it recognises that if there is serious contamination and as a result the market value is zero, there is an opt-out for the levy on that particular site because of the issues associated with it. In the interest of fair, reasonable and proportionate application of the Bill, we oppose this amendment.

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