An influential Oireachtas committee will urge the Government today to endorse a package of measures to fundamentally reform the property market by capping the price of development land.
The measures include a proposal to prevent land-hoarding by speculators by empowering local authorities to acquire development property for significantly less than its market value.
In the model proposed by the committee, local authorities would pay a premium of just 25 per cent over agricultural prices for land zoned residential but not used for that purpose.
This was first mooted in the 1973 Kenny Report on the price of building land, but the proposal was never acted upon by any government.
The report of the Committee on the Constitution was passed last Friday to the Cabinet.
While the Taoiseach will attend the formal publication of the report this evening, he is not expected to give an early indication of Government thinking about such proposals.
While the committee will say that previous governments believed such measures would be challenged in the courts and found unconstitutional, it will argue that they are "almost certain" to withstand constitutional challenge.
The report also calls for the taxation of windfall gains from the rezoning of property. It says that the added-value created by rezoning should belong to the community.
In addition, the committee says that part of the price of social and affordable housing should be recouped from development levies charged by local authorities.
While calling on local authorities to reserve lands in their development plans for social and affordable housing, the committee says that local authorities should not have to pay the full market value of the land acquired.
It goes on to call for new rules to govern compulsory purchase orders by obliging the owners of legal or other interests in land to identify themselves and their interest to the local authority acquiring the land.
The committee also says that those who work and live in rural areas "should be facilitated to build appropriately designed houses in such areas".
