THE Wright Report into the Department of Finance, which was published earlier this year, made clear that the department did not organise a strategic response to the unsustainable growth of the construction industry “or identify a full range of options to moderate activity in the sector”.

Instead, action to moderate tax incentives for the industry “was not sustained and was too little and too late to moderate construction activity sufficiently”.

It has now emerged that the Department was also operating in an information vacuum when it comes to the tax incentive property.

Amazingly, the Government does not have access to the regional distribution of the tax incentive properties that were purchased by investors.

While it would be of use to the Department in its impact assessment to see where investments are located, the geographical indicator available to Revenue refers to the location of the person claiming the tax relief and not the address of the property.

“The latter information was never sought or provided in the tax returns,” the governments consultation document on tax-based reliefs for the property industry states.

Around the Block cannot understand how you can gauge an incentives success nor spot possible oversupply if you dont know where people are buying.

Its not a coincidence that the tax incentives schemes were concentrated in the Border, Midlands and Western counties and that the new census shows that the number of vacant dwellings in Leitrim stands at 30.4 per cent, in Donegal its 28.5 per cent, its 26.5 per cent in Kerry and in Cavan 22.5 per cent.

Ironically, people may now need tax breaks of some kind to move to these areas and fill the vacant homes.