Dr. Keith Walsh:

I am not sure whether Ms Walshe has dropped out of the meeting, but I will try to answer the Senator's questions as best I can in the meantime. As the Senator noted, the bands have been widened by 75%, which matches the average property price increase from 1 May 2013, the beginning of the current valuation period, to the present day. As I said in response to Deputy McAuliffe, that 75% is an average for the country as a whole. The closer a property is to that average, the less likely the owner is to see an increase or a decrease in the property tax bill. Obviously, the 75% is an average and there will be many properties close to the average, but there will likewise be many that are not especially close to it. That is the nature of the very varied property stock throughout the country.

It is probably very welcome for everyone - Revenue and property owners - that the valuation period is reverting to four years. When property tax was introduced, although I am open to correction on this, I think the initial idea was to have a three- or four-year valuation period, but that period has been extended a couple of times and it is now the case that properties have been valued at the 1 May 2013 values for eight years. Unfortunately, that creates a number of inequalities and challenges within the system. One relates to the properties that were outside of the property net as long as the current valuation period existed, which will be included in the new valuation period, while the other concerns a matter I discussed earlier in response to the Chairman. Many people will have amended or extended their house, in various ways, over the current valuation period, and the longer that period goes on, the more of those kinds of extensions and enhancements on houses there will be. Until there is a revaluation, those changes will not be incorporated in the valuation. The best example given earlier was that there could be two houses side by side that were valued the same in 2013 but even though one might since have installed a massive extension, with gold-plated taps and so on, the two owners will still pay the same property tax. The four-year period has many benefits in regard to fairness.

The Senator went on to ask about the income thresholds for deferral. I do not know a great deal about this area, to be honest, but as Ms Walshe mentioned, the legislation will bring forward an increase in the thresholds for that, to €18,000 for an individual and to €35,000 or €36,000 for a couple. There is an attempt, therefore, to make allowances. The increases are based on an analysis of changes in incomes, particularly at the lower end of the income distribution over the period since the thresholds were first introduced.