Dr. Keith Walsh:

I will try to answer the Deputy's first two questions. Ms Walshe might then come in on his final question.

On the issue of valuations, obviously, Revenue does not know the value of every property in the country. The person best placed to assess the value of a house is the homeowner, although I fully accept that doing so is particularly challenging in the context of the current timelines. However, we will be sending out a Revenue estimate with the returns in the coming months. We have to send it out with the returns because it has a particular function if a person does not file a return and give us a self-assessed estimate of the valuation. We need a basis on which to engage with the property owner and that is what the Revenue estimate provides. As well as including the Revenue estimate in the letters, we will be issuing valuation guidance. We are hoping to make it even easier to use and even more helpful than it was last time. As the Deputy mentioned, on the previous occasion we provided averages in the context of electoral districts. This time, we are hoping to provide an average in each property's small area, which is much closer to an average for the neighbourhood. I accept the Deputy's concern on this issue. Although the Revenue estimate has to be included in the letters, we will be stressing as much as we can in all of our communications regarding LPT that it is a self-assessment tax and that it is the responsibility of the property owner to value his or her property. There is no penalty or influence discerned from a Revenue point of view if a person comes back to us with a valuation that is different from that sent to him or her. It is interesting to consider the example of 2013. Approximately 40% of people stayed with the estimate provided by Revenue but approximately 60% changed it. I accept that there is a communications exercise here, and we will be stressing this point again. The vast majority of people change the valuation estimate, however. I expect that many of the 40% of people who stayed with the estimate believed it was accurate. We will be stressing all the way through that this is a self-assessment tax and we will try to provide as much guidance as we can for people to value their home.

On the question regarding the notification period for local authorities, we have had a significant amount of engagement with the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage on this issue through several years. Outside the revaluation year, that is, in a normal year in the context of the LPT, we try to give a little more leeway. However, the timelines are very tight even in a normal year because we have several processes that we need to run through by the end of the year. These relate to the payment methods people select and such issues and we need to get them in place well in advance of the end of the year which is why we have the notification period that comes in at the end of September or in early October. We recognise that bringing forward to August that notification period for a revaluation year just adds to the challenge but, unfortunately, on the Revenue side we have to try to administer the tax and prepare and issue returns, whether by post or electronically, and get them back and then put in place all the payment instructions we receive and ensure we are in a position to collect the tax from 1 January onwards as well as getting the revaluation for the property on 1 November. We had no alternative but to push that revaluation notification date back-----