The residential zoned land tax, RZLT, was introduced with the intention of trying to deal with land hoarding and to activate land that could be used to build housing. The first liability date was 1 February this year and payments were due in by May of this year. How much revenue has been generated? How many landowners who sought exemptions from the tax? How many were granted? What percentage of the overall land covered by the tax was granted an exemption? We want to see how effective this is.

Sentiment score: 0.12

Eight per cent was deemed exempt. Am I right in saying that a significantly higher proportion has been deferred?

Sentiment score: 0.05

Which means that about a quarter got referrals. That is a significant rate of deferral. Will the Tánaiste indicate the reasons for those deferrals? Will he provide any information he has on them? Obviously, the whole point of this is to activate land in order to deliver housing and deal with the scourge of land banking and speculation. As we know, both are widespread. If one quarter of those involved received deferrals, we need to know why they got them and whether they were justified.

Sentiment score: 0.09

As I reflect on the figures, I can see that the main purpose is to activate land and to deal with land hoarding. If three quarters of the people involved paid the tax, that means they are not acting on it. They are willing to pay the tax. We have said from the outset that we thought 3% was too low because the appreciation in the value of land that people are sitting on is probably significantly in excess of 3% at the moment. It can still pay for land speculators and hoarders to just sit on land. They pay the tax - which, it would seem, they are doing - but they are still making money off the land because its value is going up. This suggests that we need much more aggressive measures in order to deal with land hoarding by people who are trying to profiteer from the housing crisis.

Sentiment score: 0.02