Minister for Sport Thomas Byrne has rejected any criticism “from Green backbenchers” about Fianna Fáil’s record in Government on housing after Coalition tensions rose over reported plans to defer the proposed Residential Zoned Land Tax by a further year.
The Irish Times previously reported tensions in the Green Party over the move, with party TD Steven Matthews describing the plans to defer the tax as “incredible” and “like hiding food in a famine”.
On Wednesday, Ossian Smyth, Minister of State in the Department of Environment and Communications, said a deferral would not be accepted.
Mr Byrne supported the plan of Minister for Finance Jack Chambers to defer the tax, intended to encourage the timely development of serviced land that is zoned residential.
“I don’t think anybody disagrees with the concept that a farmer who doesn’t want houses on their land, is not interested in zoning their land should have to pay a tax on that land which they are working on as farm land, or in some cases that I’m familiar with, literally their farm yard. That’s not something that anybody wants,” he told RTÉ radio’s Morning Ireland.
“I think the bottom line is that everybody is in agreement with Minister Chambers, that a farmer who was farming land, who was not interested in putting houses on the land or maximising the value of the land, shouldn’t have to pay a tax on it.
“There’s political agreement there that no farmer who is farming their land should have to pay this tax. I don’t think anybody would disagree.”
Taoiseach Simon Harris also weighed in support of Mr Chambers, saying active farmers should not be penalised or “wrongly taxed”.
Despite the tensions, Mr Byrne said the three Coalition parties in Government worked “really well together” although there were “occasional issues”.
“People are going to have disagreements. But I think you see overall in this Coalition that we’ve worked really, really well together. Of course, there would be issues between three different parties of government. But I think we are focused and certainly in Fianna Fáil we are focused and have shown we have been focused on the provision of housing in the last two years,” he said.
“It’s been our number one priority and the results are there, and we want to see more of those results. And that’s what we’ll be putting forward in terms of the next general election.”
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