Tim Lombard (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State. I acknowledge that the budget has been a very popular one. It has gone down well with the general public and I want to acknowledge the package that has been put in place. I will mention a few things within the budget. In particular, I want to talk about the residential zone tax.

We realise the residential zone tax was put in place because there was an issue out there with land hoarding in some locations. However, the farming community who have been actively farming this land for generations need to be taken into consideration when we look at this tax. I know of many farming families who have third and fourth generation landholdings around towns who are now in a scenario where they are going to be asked to pay tax in 2025. It is not appropriate, in many ways, when we look at our food industry and agricultural industry, that we are now going to be looking for these sections of society to relocate from landholdings they have been on for hundreds of years. I have no problem with putting a tax on a developer who buys a piece of land. However, the issue of the normal run-of-the-mill family farm that is going to be literally relocated without any consultation needs to be looked at. There is still time. We need to step back, in particular for the people and cohort of society I am talking about who need some assistance regarding this really important issue. The second issue has to do with the regional filming tax incentive. Senator McDowell is looking at me like I have two heads but what I am on about here is a tax incentive that was put in place for films. Funnily enough, west Cork is excluded. Do not ask me why. Kerry and Limerick are included but we have decided that west Cork should not be part of this regional tax incentive. I suggest that we look at the map again and logically say that places like Schull, Baltimore and Mizen - I could stay here talking about locations all day - should be considered for inclusion in the scheme. I do not know why parts of Kerry are eligible. I will not get into that parochial issue. I will step away from it for a moment. However, I honestly believe there is scope to look at the logic of excluding places like Mizen from the incentive. It is an anomaly and a mapping issue within the tax incentive put in place in 2018 and I hope the Department will look at it. Logic needs to be followed with regard to this issue.

The third issue has to do with the vulture funds. Another Senator mentioned how vulture funds affected a hotel in Clonakilty that I was in yesterday. I honestly believe we need to look at how these funds are regulated. It is a significant issue that a profitable hotel that does really good business and that could probably pay down the loan in one go cannot get the figure from the vulture fund. These funds are unregulated in how they have managed this case and others. A hotel in Clonakilty is affected, as are farmlands in other parts of west Cork. Decent hard-working farmers who ran into issues had their loans moved into vulture funds. Without doubt, they are rich in capital assets but they need a bottom line so they can remortgage the entity itself. They cannot get the exact figure they owe. That is the issue. If they had the figure, they could pay it. They could restructure and so on. However, there is no communication between the vulture funds and these people, who are trying to make a living in really tough times.

Those are my three asks. One is about the film industry, one is about the land tax and one is about the vulture funds. I thank the Minister of State very much indeed.