Parnell Summer School: A Progressive Democrats minister of state has criticised proposals mooted by the Taoiseach and Fianna Fáil to cap the price of development land as "gift-wrapped in an ideology somewhere left of Stalin".
Mr Tom Parlon, Minister for State for of Finance, who was speaking at the opening of the Parnell Summer School at Avondale in Co Wicklow, said any changes to the Constitution to allow the Government to place such a cap would be "a great mistake" and "hugely inequitable" to affected landowners.
He also said that landowners and developers should be allowed to "reap the benefits" if their lands were rezoned.
"I believe that rights cannot be withdrawn by a democratic whim of a particular government," he said. "I fear that this is the brick wall that the debate on private property in Ireland is careering towards."
The feasibility of a cap on land prices is currently being examined by the Oireachtas Committee on the Constitution, on foot of a request by the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern.
The committee is also examining the wider issue of property rights as enshrined in the Constitution and what, if any, changes it believes are necessary.
Mr Parlon's comments are believed to be in line with the thinking of his party colleagues, and mark a significant division between the PDs and their Government colleagues in Fianna Fáil.
Earlier this year the Taoiseach said he was willing to hold a referendum on property rights if this was needed to address the cost of development land. "To try and make progress in this area we have to try to deal with it in the area of land," he said.
"Developers not only have their landbanks but now have land options for the future, land options that will lead to enormously costly land into the future that will make sure that housing continues to be so costly," Mr Ahern said then.
He said he asked the constitutional committee to look at the issue "because it could mean that we have to have a constitutional amendment". The Taoiseach said at the time that if needed he was "prepared to go down that road".
However Mr Parlon said he found that "a number of very worrying positions have emerged from the committee about limiting the private property rights of Irish citizens in an effort to put more development land on the market".
"The provision of quality affordable housing to all citizens is the ultimate goal that the State wants to achieve, and I fully support that, but I believe that weakening private property rights as a means to achieve this goal would be a great mistake.
"Such an approach is gift-wrapped in an ideology somewhere left of Stalin, which has no place in a modern dynamic open economy like Ireland."
Mr Parlon said proposals such as a land price cap would "have major negative ramifications for thousands of property owners and would be a jump back to the dark days of the 19th century".
He also believed a cap would be unworkable and ran contrary to PD policy of incentives to target economic supply problems such as the current housing shortage. "Incentives work way more effectively in the marketplace than sanctions," he said.
"When the rate of capital gains tax was cut from 40 per cent to 20 per cent the yield went up by 500 per cent and thousands of acres were freed up for housing and development.
He added: "I believe that any attempt to freeze the value of land would cause more problems than it would solve and is a battering ram solution and legally lazy way to solve a very complex problem."
"Ireland is full of honest hard-working people who own property and penalising their initiatives though putting some extra charge on private property is wrong."