Pat Deering (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael)
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Question 418: To ask the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government if he will consider an amnesty on the non-principal private residence charge for persons who own only one house but because of their work situation are unable to live in it and to compensate the cost of renting a house near their work place are financially forced to rent out their own. [7608/12]

Phil Hogan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael)
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The Local Government (Charges) Act 2009, as amended, broadened the revenue base of local authorities by introducing a charge on non-principal private residences. The charge is set at €200 and liability for it falls, in the main, on owners of rental, holiday and vacant properties.

Under the Act, it is a function of a local authority to collect non-principal private residence charges and late payment fees due to it, and all charges and late payment fees imposed and payable to a local authority are under the care and management of the local authority concerned. In this regard, application of the legislation in particular circumstances is a matter for the relevant local authority. Interpretation of the legislation is a matter for legal advice in individual cases and ultimately a matter for the Courts.

My Department is currently engaged with the City and County Managers' Association in the development of guidelines for local authorities in relation to the operation of the "care and management" provisions of the legislation. In particular, this guidance will deal with situations where significant arrears of non-principal private residence charges and late payment fees have arisen and where a person can demonstrate genuine hardship in having to discharge their liability in a single payment. In such cases, the guidelines will set out the modalities for local authorities, exercising their functions under the care and management provisions, including where payment of the outstanding liability in a single payment would result in hardship, entering into payment arrangements for the discharge of outstanding liabilities in instalments over a specified period.