Landowners should pay penal rates of tax on windfall zoning profits so that galloping house prices can be averted, An Taisce advocated at an Oireachtas Committee yesterday.
The group was one of nine making oral submissions yesterday on the last day of two weeks of hearings before the Joint Committee on the Constitution on property rights.
The committee heard from interested parties as to whether the articles in the Constitution on property rights should be amended. It is expected a report for Government will be ready in six months.
Yesterday, Mr Michael Smith, chairman of An Taisce, said it did not believe that property should be a fundamental right. It should have the lower status of an entitlement.
An Taisce believed the Constitution should be changed as there was ambiguity.
"We believe the existing ambiguity has driven a conservative approach on the part of those charged with the public interest and the common good."
He gave the example of local authorities who were reluctant to exercise their power on Compulsory Purchase Orders (CPOs). There should be more use of CPOs, whose implementation would result in cheaper and better housing.
An Taisce's honorary secretary, Ms Sinead Dullaghan, said landowners should pay penal rates of tax on windfall zoning profit. The tax should then be diverted to local authorities for use to buy land at current-use market value.
The Green Party also argued for a windfall tax in its submission.
Cllr Deirdre de Burca said there should be a windfall tax based on the principle that communities, rather than developers, should benefit from excessive profits accruing from rezoning.
Mr Dan Boyle Tsaid: "We would place above all the right to shelter in the Constitution."
Making arguments that there should be more land rezoned were the Irish Farmers' Association (IFA) and the joint submission from the Irish House Builders' Association (IHBA) and the Construction Industry Federation (CIF).
Mr John Dillon, IFA, said they needed to keep the price of property down, and the first step was to rezone more land.
The over-concentration of development in the greater Dublin region was a major contributor to the high price of development land.
He said farming was based on the right of ownership of private property, and there was no need to change the Constitution.
Compensation for CPOs must be based on the full open market value of the property at the point where compulsory powers were exercised.
Full and fair compensation which also took account of the loss of viability was also called for by the Irish Landowners' Organisation Ltd.
Chairman of the IHBS, Mr Matt Gallagher, said there had been slow delivery of services for land which could not be built on. He did not believe capping the price of land would solve the issue of high house prices. The market decided the price of land.
"The only way to keep prices down is for supply to keep pace with demand."
Mr Gallagher also criticised the planning development process as being far too complex and long-drawn out. "The system has just become a monster."
Mr Liam Kelleher, CIF director general, said supply was the key to the moderating of house prices.
Submissions were also made by the Chartered Institute of Building, Educate Together, the Irish Uplands Forum and the Farmers and Property Owners' Association Ltd.