Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 21 September 2016

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government

Estimates for Public Services 2016: Vote 34 - Housing, Planning and Local Government

9:30 am

Photo of Simon CoveneySimon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

That is a very fair question and Senator Boyhan made the point earlier. We are asking councils to sign off on local property tax decisions now - whether they go up or down - but they are not passing their budgets for another couple of months. This happens because the Revenue Commissioners insist on getting earlier decisions around the local property tax. It poses real problems for both the executive teams and the councillors. They will know 75% or 80% of the budget for next year but there are other variables of which they will not be fully sure. These might include the Lansdowne Road agreement, etc. There are other issues that will be decided upon in the budget and they may change, up or down, the figures being considered. It is difficult for councils to make decisions around local property tax and how they may be able to use extra money without seeing the full picture.

Ironically, before this meeting we had a conversation lasting 15 or 20 minutes on this issue. Some of the chief executives are asking me if we can consider trying to match the two processes. We will speak to the Department of Finance and the Revenue Commissioners about that to see what we can do next year. It would be difficult to do it this year. If we are to expect progressive decisions around local property tax, the least we can do is say to councillors they can see the full picture, including what they can gain or the cost of cutting the tax. Maybe the ideology could be taken from the debate around property tax and whether a person is for or against it. Perhaps we could have more pragmatic decisions around improving revenue streams for local services, which is ultimately what we want to reach.

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