Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I engaged with the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine when we were bringing in the changes. In fairness to the Minister, he raised the same issues the Deputy has just raised a year ago when we were designing this new tax. He raised the issue of land in smaller towns that could be owned by farmers and is zoned for residential use. Our judgment - the Deputy will know this better from a local point of view - is that the overall amount of land is a low share of the total amount of land that will be taxed under this new measure. That will be of little comfort or perhaps relevance to the owners of this land. The tax that is being introduced provides for a process to change the zoning of the land through which landowners can ask for it to have non-residential status. That is really what needs to happen. Given the housing needs that we have, where land is zoned for new housing, we want to build on it.

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