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Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Thursday, 1 Jul 1999

Vol. 507 No. 4

Written Answers. - Rural Renewal Scheme.

Joe Higgins

Ceist:

109 Mr. Higgins (Dublin West) asked the Minister for Finance the basis on which he labels one major heading of the projected investments as residential rather than commercial in respect of the rural regeneration tax incentive scheme thus avoiding the need to gain the permission of the European Commission's Directorate General on State aids and competition when the tax relief is available when the buildings are only occupied for three months of the year and is not necessarily directly tied to income from the buildings in the designated area and allows for capital costs to be written off against rental income from any source. [17037/99]

My Department was informed by the State aids section of DGIV of the European Commission that tax reliefs for the provision of residential accommodation do not need to be notified as a State aid to the EU Commission. Since 1986, when the first renewal scheme was introduced, the normal reliefs for the provision of residential accommodation have been (a) the relief for owner-occupiers and (b) the relief for rented residential accommodation, generally known as the section 23 relief. Both reliefs have been included in the rural renewal scheme.

The section 23 relief allows for the qualifying expenditure on the provision of the rented residential accommodation to be offset against all the Irish rental income of the owner of the accommodation. Such deductibility is considered necessary in order to encourage the investor to provide the residential property in the desired urban or rural renewal location which would otherwise not have occurred.

In the normal course, there is no minimum lease period for the qualifying property for the purposes of the section 23 relief. However, in the case of the section 23 relief in the rural renewal area, there is a minimum period of three months and it is also provided in the legislation that the property in question must be used as the sole or main residence of the lessee throughout the period of the lease.

Joe Higgins

Ceist:

110 Mr. Higgins (Dublin West) asked the Minister for Finance the basis on which the Government allowed the rural regeneration scheme to go forward without having first created special landscape and environment protection guidelines, particularly in view of the experience with the seaside tax relief scheme and its effects on landscape and the fact that the substantial aid received from Europe by thousands of Irish farmers under the REP scheme strictly required that landscape and environmental values be preserved. [17038/99]

I am sure the Deputy would agree that the pilot rural renewal scheme for the Upper Shannon area is targeted at an area which is seriously disadvantaged because of low income levels, population decline, poor economic prospects and poor social infrastructure. The aim of this pilot scheme is to improve the economic and social condition of this deprived rural area, an objective with which no doubt the Deputy would be in full agreement.

Environmental guidelines are not a matter for my functional area of responsibility. However, I am advised that the Department of the Environment and Local Government is preparing guidelines on high amenity landscapes to assist planning authorities in carrying out their planning functions. The designation of areas of high amenity landscape will continue, however, as at present, to be a matter for each planning authority who are in the best position to assess landscaped amenity in their area.

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