Superstore operators will not receive tax relief to develop warehouses in urban renewal areas because the relevant schemes have already wound down, the Minister for the Environment has said.
While Mr Roche suggested this would have applied if the deadlines had not passed, he said the Government had already initiated a review of tax reliefs.
There was no comment yesterday from the Minister for Communications, Mr Dempsey, on the relaxation of planning guidelines that clear the way for the development of an Ikea superstore in Ballymun, north Dublin.
Mr Dempsey is known to have strongly opposed the plan which will remove the cap on the size of superstores selling durable goods in urban renewal areas in nine towns and cities.
While Mr Dempsey is known to have cited the concerns of furniture-makers in Navan during discussions on the proposed change, his spokeswoman would not comment when asked whether he had opposed the change at Cabinet on Wednesday.
Mr Dempsey was Minister in Mr Roche's Department when the planning guidelines were introduced in 2001. According to his spokeswoman, he said the Cabinet had made its decision and the matter was closed. The cap was removed after a review initiated by Mr Dempsey's immediate successor, Mr Cullen, who is now in Transport.
Mr Roche said there were no special tax concessions embraced in the Government's decision. "There was no tax change and in the case of urban renewal and the town renewal schemes the due dates have already passed," he said.
But Mr Roche said superstore operators would not have been prevented from benefiting from the relevant schemes if they were still open. "The reliefs that exist, exist." The Minister was responding to a demand from Labour that he explain what tax reliefs or other incentives would be made available to superstore operators.
The party's environment spokesman, Mr Eamon Gilmore, claimed the superstore developments would probably qualify for tax relief because they were being allowed in order to encourage urban renewal.
The decision "will open the way for huge retailers to benefit from tax reliefs that were supposed to be designed to promote the development of disadvantaged urban areas", he said.
Mr Gilmore also maintained that Fianna Fáil backbenchers must have been taken aback by the extent of the Government's relaxation of the guidelines because many of them had been the most vocal opponents of change in the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Enterprise and Small Business.
Mr Roche questioned claims by the Greens that the development of an Ikea store in north Dublin would lead to traffic chaos on the M50 motorway.
He told transport spokesman for the Green Party, Mr Eamon Ryan, that superstore customers tended to spend several hours shopping instead of making short trips similar to supermarket shoppers.
