Undeveloped site tax is urgently required

Passing off binding regulations as ‘guidelines’; to allow what became known as ‘shoe-box’ apartments to be built is sharp practice.

The reason behind it is clear.

The Statutory Instruments Act, 1947, requires all government departments which bring out any regulations to obtain the consent of the Houses of the Oireachtas before they have effect, with some rare exceptions.

The shoe-box guidelines Minister Alan Kelly recently promulgated are rash.

The guidelines contain planning policy requirements that will take precedence over local area plans or strategic development zone planning schemes.

Ministerial intervention in the planning processes of local authorities is unwise. We had it before. The late Minister James Tully (Labour) comes to mind. Methinks the incumbent is too big for his boots.

At the same time the undeveloped sites’ tax, mooted at 3% of market value ( a rate similar to the derelict site levy which is scarcely implemented) has been put off until 2019.

It’s another myopic take on the Taoiseach’s mantra: to make this the best little country to do business.

Minister Alan Kelly has a large bureaucracy to advise him. What advice, I wonder, has his Secretary General given him?

John Colgan

Dublin Road Street

Leixlip

Co Kildare