The provision of a transportation infrastructure was being obstructed by the cost of acquiring property from landowners who hoarded lands and were then paid hugely inflated compensation, an Oireachtas committee was told yesterday.
Mr James Muldowney of the Dublin Transportation Office told the Joint Committee on the Constitution hearing on private property rights that the Constitution should be amended to ensure a change in the compensation code in the interests of the common good. "One of the principal obstacles to the efficient and cost-effective provision of transportation infrastructure is the high cost of acquiring the necessary property interests," he said.
The Government when acquiring the land to facilitate the provision of projects such as the metro or light rail lines was often obliged to pay highly inflated prices. These resulted from development potential on new zonings or rezonings which in turn were facilitated by the provision of the infrastructure, he said.
In Dublin at present, significant tracts of development land located relatively close to the city were withheld from the market, he said. This led to price inflation, leapfrog development, the creation of an artificial shortage of development sites and the rezoning of lands distant from Dublin to serve the needs of commuters to the capital.
Much of this "hoarded" land could be released and developed and this would lead to a decrease in the price of such land, Mr Muldowney said. Such land could be compulsorily acquired but the costs would be prohibitive under the current compensation regime.
"Is it just that a landowner as well as being compensated for disturbance, severance and injurious affection, should also be compensated at market value for land taken to facilitate a metro line, when much of the land value enhancement is derived from the prospective provision of the said line?" he asked. Mr Muldowney proposed that the landowner should be paid compensation based on existing use value.
A submission was made Mr Aengus Ó Snodaigh TD on behalf of Sinn Féin. He said the right to housing was fundamental and must be enshrined in the Constitution. Property rights should also be dealt with in a single self-contained article. Social justice must be given pre-eminence to the rights of private property.
"Most of these issues can be dealt with by legislation but the excuse for not acting on it was that there were constitutional problems. The will has not been there," he said.
A submission by the Irish Senior Citizens Parliament was made by Mr Michael O'Halloran who said society had failed young people. Housing was impossible for low- and middle-income families. There was a need to amend the Constitution to reflect the duties of property as well as its rights, he said.
Mr Patrick Whelan of the Office of the Ombudsman said the property rights articles in the Constitution should be examined to see if a greater balance between a person's property rights and the interests of the common good could be achieved.