Colm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Before I begin, I remind members and witnesses to turn off their mobile telephones. Interference from mobile telephones affects sound quality and transmission at the meeting. I welcome Mr. Keith Walsh, the chief revenue economist at the corporate affairs division of the Revenue Commissioners. He is accompanied by Ms Jean Kennedy, the head of capital taxes and personal tax division, and Ms Fionnuala Ryan, assistant principal at the statistics and economics branch and corporate affairs division. I thank our witnesses for making themselves available to the committee. We do appreciate their attendance.

Today we are discussing the local property tax re-evaluation and commercial stamp duty. I understand that the officials in the Department of Finance are not available to attend our meeting today. It is the normal practice that they do. We will, however, have an opportunity to meet with the officials to discuss these matters in further detail on 16 January. The purpose of this meeting with officials from the Revenue Commissioners is to discuss the concerns the committee flagged last September around the revaluation of the local property tax, LPT, and the potential sudden increases in LPT arising from the revaluation process. We will also discuss the commercial stamp duty measures introduced in budget 2018.

I will now refer to privilege before we hear the opening statements of the witnesses. I draw the attention of witnesses to the fact that by virtue of section 17(2)(l) of the Defamation Act 2009, witnesses are protected by absolute privilege in respect of their evidence to the committee. However, if they are directed by the committee to cease giving evidence on a particular matter and they continue to so do, they are entitled thereafter only to a qualified privilege in respect of their evidence. They are directed that only evidence connected with the subject matter of these proceedings is to be given and they are asked to respect the parliamentary practice to the effect that, where possible, they should not criticise or make charges against any person, persons or entity by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable.

Members are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against a person outside the House or an official either by name or in such a way as to make him or her identifiable.