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

The reason for the year's deferral is to allow us to give landowners another year to seek the dezoning of their land or to properly update various different maps to show which land really is serviced because there are some disputes as to whether land is serviced or not. We need a little bit more time here. The idea behind the tax is a very good one. When land is zoned and serviced, the taxpayers, through their investment and decisions, add huge value to that land. That land should not be hoarded in the middle of a housing crisis. It should be developed so that people can have homes to buy and live in. However, there are anomalies. There are situations where a family may have been actively farming land for generations, never sought for it to be zoned and would like it to be dezoned so they can continue to farm it. That is an anomaly that needs to be corrected. However, there is a concern that, if we do that, people will seek strategic dezoning in order to avoid the tax. We need to work that out. That is one of the reasons we have deferred the tax for a year so we have a bit more time.

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