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A NUMBER OF Green Party politicians have not held back today in voicing their disdain at a decision to defer taxing undeveloped land.
It is understood the Greens side of the government were “blindsided” by the Irish Independent report that Finance Minister Jack Chambers is set to defer the Residential Zoned Land Tax for another year.
The tax is targeted at zoned, serviced residential development lands, including mixed-use lands, with the tax rate set at 3% of the land’s market value annually.
The new tax was set to kick in in February, with bills coming due in May 2025.
Last year, local authorities published maps of areas where landowners will be subject to the new tax with Housing Minister Darragh O’Brien stating that only one-sixth of residentially-zoned land is activated for housing during a given local authority’s six-year development plan.
This tax measure, which has had a long-lead in time, was promoted by government as a measure to incentivise landowners to use existing planning permissions for housing.
Chambers told RTÉ News yesterday that he intends to defer the tax for one year only, as he wants to ensure active farmers are fully excluded from it.
“I’m working on proposals to defer the residential zoned land tax for a further year, and this is to exclude active farmers from this tax.
“It would place a disproportionate and unfair burden on active farmers if this tax was to be imposed annually,” he said.
His comments came after Taoiseach Simon Harris said it is “offensive” to describe farmers as land-hoarders and defended plans to defer the tax.
“As long as I’m Taoiseach, no active farmer is going to pay a residential land tax – simple as.”
“This land tax is absolutely about making sure people can’t hoard land. It was never meant to be about penalising an active farmer,” said the Taoiseach.
Since those remarks, a number of members of the Green Party have voiced their anger over the move.
It is understood those within the party are angry that “no heads up” was given that this was in the works, particularly as the tax was legislated for back in 2021, and deferred in last year’s budget so that everyone could get their ducks in a row.
Green Party TD Neasa Hourigan said if the government are serious about tackling the housing crisis then land that is zoned and serviced as well as earmarked by councils for housing should be utilised, and if not, taxed for lying idle.
She told RTÉ’s Morning Ireland: “We’re in the run up to an election and we know that what we’re seeing right now is a step back from something that was agreed five years ago.”
Land hoarding is one of the biggest problems in terms of delivering affordable housing, she said, stating that “now we’re putting it probably on the never, never, not even on the long finger. For a Fianna Fáil minister to do this particularly is shocking”.
She added that the finance minister, as a Dublin minister, is going to have to stand on doorsteps in Dublin West and defend putting off the tax measure that she said will fundamentally deal with the price of housing.
Deferring the tax is “like hiding food in a famine”, she added.
Hourigan said there is already an exemption for farmers who are working the land, whereby farmers can opt out and ask for their land to be dezoned.
Education Minister Norma Foley today defended the decision, stating that she wanted to commend the finance minister, calling the deferment “the right move”.
“I think there’s a recognition that we also have to support farmers who are active on the ground. Agriculture and its importance should never be underestimated. Those who are actively farming, those who are using the land for the purpose of agriculture, I don’t think that they should be caught in a bind,” said Foley.
“So we need to reflect on that, and we need to preserve that, but equally so, we need to drive ahead, obviously, with housing,” she said, stating that it was about “doing both equally and doing both fairly”.
It is understood the Greens want a solution found sooner rather than later and are seeking a reversal of the decision to defer the tax.
Those within the party state that there is real concern that speculators, who are sitting on parcels of land that has been zoned, have no intention of building on the land, and are simply sitting on it as its value increases every year.
While the Greens are now at loggerheads with their coalition partners in government, there is an assumption now that a solution will be found and the deferment will not take place.
Speaking on RTÉ Radio One today, Minister of State Ossian Smyth said: “Here we are three years later [from the original agreement] and some politicians think it should be deferred for another year”.
When asked about the decision to defer the tax, he said: “I’m sure they won’t [defer it], how could they, that’s not going to happen.”
Pushing out the tax is being seen by the Greens as an own goal of sorts by Fianna Fáil given that the party holds the housing brief and also as an easy topic for Sinn Féin to highlight.
Sinn Féin has criticised the move, saying that the deferral will benefit developers who are speculating on land.
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Shouldn’t be adding chlorine in the first place.
@Ciarán McPhillips: exactly. Does no one else not question why cancer is rampant in Ireland! ( you have a 93% higher chance of getting cancer if your drinking chlorinated water)
@Colette Kearns:
Please publish the peer reviewed source for that claim. (YouTube videos do not count)
@P.J. Nolan: It’s according to the “ US council of Environmental Quality “
@Colette Kearns: “it’s science” it works 93% of the time everytime
@Colette Kearns: You might not realise that the figure you’ve quoted relates to one sample who were drinking rural run off water that was chlorinated. The chlorine combined with various fertilizers and decaying organic matter to increase the occurance of rectal cancer.
@Honeybadger197: * that was then chlorinated
I love the game of ‘lets pretend’ with regard to the embarrassment called ‘Irish Water’. Its like their contentious extravagant frittering away of upwards of a billion euro never happened.
@Honeybadger197: from 1978
@Colette Kearns: exactly it is not put in the water systems in other countries.
@Colette Kearns: 93%!? While I agree that a huge cause of cancer is the amount of chemicals in the processed food that many CHOOSE to eat. However, where did you get that percentage? If that was the case then nearly everyone drinking it would have cancer and that’s not the case.
@Ciarán McPhillips: Have you seen what it does to the workers in US chicken factories, it makes them ill for life…
@Alois Irlmaier: ..or the effect it has on Syrian civilians when their dictator president drops barrels of it on them from helicopter
No doubt the people most vocal about not paying their water charges will be the first to complain. No such thing as a free lunch.
@Ricky Spanish: Well they’ll say they’re paying for it in other ways to be fair.
@Ricky Spanish: The €500,000,000 wasted on meters would have moved our infrastructure issues along in the right direction, no?
@Ricky Spanish: well if FG weren’t intent on privatising OUR water supply and handing it to their mates, maybe people would have been less vocal.
PS, when are we getting the referendum on this?, im still waiting and voting preferences will not be forthcoming until it happens!
@Ricky Spanish: Most people didn’t object to paying a bit extra, but they won’t pay for a gang of crooks to have lavis cars, bonuses etc etc etc, our water services would be privatized by now ( which has turned out to be disastrous) if it wasn’t for people power!
@Ricky Spanish: You are Alan Kelly and I claim my 100 e reward
@Ricky Spanish: The answer you are looking for is in the cheque you received.
I didn’t waste any money by signing up and getting a refund, and yes I and every other worker pay handsomely already.
@Ricky Spanish: eh….it costs to add this to the water.
@Ricky Spanish: Now now Ricky we already pay for our water multiple times so do try to keep up to date. So would you please tell your blueshirt buddys and their tax exile benefactor to shove the water charge/scam/bondholder tax where the sun dont shine. Many thanks.
@Ricky Spanish: So the FG way is to poison people. The linch has been paid for over and over again. It’s still being paid for. Toddle along.
@Ricky Spanish: I saw part of a documentary tonight on RT about Irish Water and how the Troika wanted to privatise it and out government told them not to use that language yet as people would see it… So the Troika wants to privatise all water in the EU…
@Alois Irlmaier: Shouldn’t RT concentrate on their own experience with privatisation? How all the oligarchs in Russia became billionaires after they got a hold of it’s state assets
@Ricky Spanish: apologies I’m late getting to your comment ( work gets in the way sometimes). I just wanted to say that you’re a moron. BTW – there’s plenty of free lunches being had in the Dail every day – there really is such a thing as a free lunch Rickeeeeee!
Well done water protesters. Only country in eu27 without metered water charges. Paying through general taxation equals waste and unservicabilty.
@Tony Dowling: Incorrect, many Municipalities are remunicipalising their water supplies after disastrous privateering of profit.
Yes, we are currently paying through general taxation.
If that was removed then it would have been feasible to promote paying by use to a PUBLIC water utility but alas FFFGLAB messed it up big time with their buddies.
@Tony Dowling: So do you think it is a deliberate ploy by I.W. to try and teach us a lesson to pay up or else?
Or do you think it is gross incompetance by I.W. who fully expected to charge people through the nose for a product that they were already paying for and collect bonuses while doing it all before it was privatised?
Face facts, I.W. was a joke and a scam that FG tried to ram down peoples throats but for once people stood up and said no, enough is enough.
@Derek Lyster: its a utility starved of cash due to a waste and stupidity of large section if irish public.
@Tony Dowling: obvious Tony from your comments your not too knowledgeable about the waste and quango iw was and or the love of common sense still hasn’t been fully disbanded.
@Tony Dowling: But surely keeping the water under the control of the local authorities and using the additional taxes that were created many years ago to pay for the upgrade of the system could have helped solve alot of the problems? And imagine how far the money that was wasted setting up I.W. would have helped a great deal too?
I just don’t get why I.W. was set up. Any function they provide could have easily been provided by already existing local authorities and all of the grief caused and money wasted could have been avoided?
@Derek Lyster: It was set up because it is mire efficient to have a single utility than couple of dozen local authorities. Economies of scale would have saved money in the long run and the pay per use setup would have cut supply requirements in half.
@Tony Dowling: According to the world’s leading expert on water and sanitation provision and internationally renowned environmentalist,Maude Barlow “The Irish system of paying for water and sanitation services through progressive taxation and non domestic user fees is an exemplary model of fair, equitable & sustainable service delivery for the entire world”
She served as Senior Advisor on water to the 63rd President to the UN General Assembly.
@Tony Dowling: your a hopeless case tony
@Tony Dowling: Efficient like the HSE?
Where are the stats to prove that money would be saved in the long run and that requirements would be cut in half? It may well have saved the government money but the public would have been fleeced.
People need what they need and meters would not change that although it would cut down on waste but education could assist with that.
Without a doubt I.W. was a complete phuck up by the government who just assumed we would fall into line so i will just stick with the general opinion of I.W. is a complete waste of money and was set up to be sold so our water supply would end up privatised.
Chemical weapon attack against your own customers. Nice job once again Irish Water.
Surprised Navan isn’t on this list – the bleach in the taps here is undrinkable
This poison shouldn’t be in our water…FULL STOP!!!!!
The usual clowns banging on about this is what happens when you don’t pay your water bill.
Did it not occur that adding the poison is actually costing money!
@Sean Barron: I quite like that typhoid and cholera are a thing of the past here tbh.
@Honeybadger197: Last case of typhoid was in 2003. Not due to water quality.
Not only are they trying to harm us with added flouride to our drinking water now they are also damaging our health with too much chlorine which makes the kitchen tap water smell like bleach!
You cannot even make a cup of tea with this disgusting so called drinking water!
@Mairead Hilliard: what do you think boiling water does to the low levels of residual chlorine?
@Mairead Hilliard: To be fair they have been adding chlorine to the water for a long time. It’s why we don’t get outbreaks of typhoid,cholera etc. anymore. In this instance someone fecked up and added too much. I doubt anyone will be held accountable for it though.
And yet fg continue to squander millions of taxpayers money on the scam that is Irish water.
Even more astonishingly, most of them would likely get re-elected if there was an election tomorrow
Well now I know why my hands have been smelling of bleach for the last few days!
Fix your leaks or you will be charged, do not waste water or else!!!!
Leave your taps on and flush out your system because we are a shower of inept gombeens who cannot deliver a service we are highly paid to do.
Yep, Ireland in a nutshell
Just drink Fiji, yaaaaaas
Could it be the farmers pumping there slutty tanks into the rivers , saw one fella doing it last week as I passed through ballyragget in Kilkenny ????
@wiggy: don’t think there’s much chlorine in shite
@Jane: Yes, but that does happen, and if the chlorine wasn’t added by mistake, it would have been added to deal with the extra germs dumped in the rivers. At least that’s how I read it. Either that or somebody’s imaginary swimming pools have sprung a leak. We’ll never know.
@Fiona Fitzgerald: probably human error or incompetence Fiona. Although how it went on for as long as it did I can’t understand. I read this morning there’s been a smell of chlorine for 10 days. All treatment plants have high chlorine alarms so how it could go that long is hard to understand.
These clowns at Irish Water spent millions of Taxpayers money on a stupid system the old system I could drink water off the tap now I find I have to filter the water .The person that started this should be in Jail as for FG Leo will probably gain another few points in the polls.
Slurry tanks
@wiggy: I liked slutty tanks more.
What do farmers put in their slutty tanks BTW? Any farmers want to let us know?
No one care about water in water.ie.
I have leaking around 200 liters per day almost 2 year. I calls to water.ie every week .always the same story- you are o the emergency list.we call you in few days- never nobody call me.I call to them.For what the people have wages.I speaking with menager or supervisor and she prints me call back next day-to-day that was few months ago.I just asking how is the cost filters 200 liters of water.and if for almost 2 years all that water going under my house and garden-how many EUR water.ie wasting.Water is everywhere- THAT COMPANY DON’T CARE ABOUT WATER- beacouse they not pay for that but Government
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