Martin Mansergh (Fianna Fail)

I accept that is the market value. I question more generally how we have got ourselves into the position where we have to pay such vast compensation for farmland, be it for a prison or any other public purpose, over and above its normal agricultural value. I was equally shocked that the Railway Procurement Agency had to pay €3 million acquiring back gardens along the southern Luas line. We have a remarkably skewed interpretation of Article 43 of the Constitution, which acknowledges the right to private property, but also states: "The State recognises, however, that the exercise of the rights mentioned in the foregoing provisions of this Article ought, in civil society, to be regulated by the principles of social justice." It goes on: "The State, accordingly, may as occasion requires delimit by law the exercise of the said rights with a view to reconciling their exercise with the exigencies of the common good."

Land values 30, 40 or 50 years ago were not remotely what they are today but there was a much more robust interpretation by the State of the public good and social justice. We all remember the Land Commission, which bought good agricultural land in return for land bonds. Some questioned the justice of that policy but I defend it as it represented social justice at the time. If land was required for roads, bog development or agricultural cottages the landowner in question certainly would not have made a profit on it. If anything he would make a loss.

The courts have got us into a position where having once had a robust notion of the relationship between private property and the social good, we now have an almost unlimited worship of property to the extent that if something is wanted for a public purpose it is worth tens if not hundreds of millions of euro. There is something wrong with these huge windfall profits, and I probably do not represent the views of my would-be constituents on this matter. The Government and the legal profession need to examine this as the balance has shifted dramatically. The Minister has encountered some criticism because we have pushed the rights of private property beyond all notions of sanity and we need to return to a saner view of the public good.