Rebecca Moynihan (Labour) | Oireachtas source

It is difficult, when we are seeing the images coming from Ukraine, to come into this House and speak about anything else, quite frankly. It is dominating everyone's thoughts and the news agenda. It is horrific and it is worth reiterating that point.

I want to talk about the calls from my party colleague, Deputy Bacik, on behalf of those people who are fleeing Ukraine and travelling to its borders. The Irish Government must put pressure on our EU counterparts to accept various forms of ID at borders. Some of the people who are fleeing do not necessarily have passports but many have national ID cards. That goes for people who might not be Ukrainian citizens but who do have Ukrainian national ID cards. That would be an important yet simple step in allowing people to claim refugee status and flee from the conflict in Ukraine.

The second important step is to try to shore up the Ukrainian currency. People who are crossing the country and fleeing are finding themselves at borders with neighbouring countries but their money is worthless and does not get them very far. That is another practical step that we can take.

I also want to raise the issue of land value sharing which is referenced in Housing for All and which was promised at the end of last year. It has now been delayed until next year. Effectively, it is a mechanism for the State to be able to realise the benefit of an increase in land value as a result of changes in zoning or infrastructural development. The aim is to ensure that landowners do not enjoy a windfall from such changes or developments and simply flip sites. This became a pressing issue when we saw a developer promising to deliver housing and getting local authority to rezone land, as happened on the Chivers site in north Dublin. The developer then put that land on the market again, without actually developing housing, for ten times what was originally paid.

In Dublin in particular, a lot of submissions are being made to the local authorities for land to be rezoned for housing and the local authorities will have to do so because of timelines in their development plans. I urge the Government to put an emergency windfall tax in place this year if it cannot get the land value sharing mechanism up and running. This will ensure that we do not see sites being flipped and land speculation continuing, which is increasing the cost of housing without housing actually being delivered.