Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The short answer is “Yes”. This tax was introduced to penalise people who were hoarding land during a housing crisis. It now appears to be affecting 100 or possibly 200 landowners who are not land hoarders. They are farmers who have sought de-zoning, which has been refused in some cases by An Bord Pleanála. As Deputy Canney mentioned earlier, the issue of R2 zoning arises where somebody's land is zoned residential but he or she cannot develop it even if he or she wanted to because of the way the development plan is written. I spoke to the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage; the Minister for Finance and the Minister for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform about this last week. We do accept that anomalies have arisen in cases where somebody has sought a de-zoning or where it is R2 land and we do want to fix it. It may require a change in primary legislation to do so. We should have an answer in the next couple of weeks.

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