Mr. Keith Walsh:

The role of Revenue is to administer the local property taxes as set out in legislation. We are more than happy to examine options for change. We feed a lot of information into tax strategy group papers and so on in the run-up to the budget but we do not necessarily have the time and the resources to examine all the options for all of the different taxes. We work closely with the Department of Finance and we try to prioritise its requests for research or analysis.

On the question regarding equalisation, I do not have a huge amount of information on this issue because, again, it is a little beyond Revenue's role. We collect the tax and we hand it over to the Exchequer or to the local government fund. We do have a little information on the local adjustment factor, which is somewhat related to equalisation. As the Deputy is probably aware, the local adjustment factor allows local authorities to vary the local property tax rate up or down by 15% of the standard rate. For example, 11 local authorities have availed of the opportunity to vary the rate for 2018. In our estimation, this covers approximately 0.9 million properties and will probably lead to a slight increase in the amount collected in local property tax for next year. Approximately 20 local authorities have decided to not change their rate. Three local authorities have increased their rate by 10%. Limerick City and County Council has increased its rate by 7.5% and two other councils have increased it by 5%. Waterford City and County Council has increased its rate by 2.5%. The four Dublin local authorities have decreased their rates by either 10% or 15%. Across the spread of those 11 increases, we expect a marginal increase in the receipts collected.