Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent)
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121. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government his plans to disincentivise the practice of land banking through the introduction of a tax on vacant sites; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [41760/14]

Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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Action 23 of the Government’s Construction 2020 Strategy, which was published in May 2014, committed to examining the possibility of enabling local authorities, should they wish to do so, to adopt new measures to incentivise the use and development of vacant and underutilised sites in urban areas. In this regard, the Government have recently given approval for the preparation of a new Planning Bill to facilitate the implementation of certain planning-related actions in the Construction 2020 strategy, including provision for the introduction of a vacant sites levy. Under this provision, local authorities, in urban centres of greater than 3,000 population, will be given powers to apply annual levies of 3% of the value of sites which are left vacant and underutilised in areas designated for priority development under their respective local development plan schemes and strategies. The full details of the levy will be finalised during the drafting of the Bill.

The General Scheme of the relevant legislation – the Planning and Development (No.1) Bill 2014 - has been sent to the Joint Committee on the Environment, Culture and the Gaeltacht in order to facilitate pre-legislative scrutiny. Subject to the completion of drafting, I intend to progress the Bill as a priority during the Spring Oireachtas session.