Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 1:

In page 5, between lines 29 and 30, to insert the following:“(a) property which has experienced a change in circumstances which has significantly affected its net value,”.

This amendment covers one of my principal objections to the legislation. It deals with a situation where there might have been no material change in circumstances, such as physical alteration to the buildings concerned, but other circumstances might have significantly affected the net value of the property.

I have given the example of a town or a village being bypassed. The physical buildings of the shops or filling stations that used to do a certain amount of business in such a town or village will be still the same and the Valuation Office will say there is no material change in circumstances. While that might be correct from a physical point of view, the whole business environment in that area will have changed. There can be an active shopping centre in place but a new much bigger shopping centre may have been built a couple of miles away and this will take away all the business, or a large portion of it, from the shops in the original shopping centre and their business and profitability will reduce. Crime rates have increased in certain areas where there is a lack of policing and people no longer go to shops that are in a cul-de-sac or a secluded area. Again, there has been no physical alteration to the buildings in those areas, but there has been a significant change to their net value and the purpose of my amendment is to facilitate revaluations in such situations.