Dr. Keith Walsh:

I might try to answer those questions, particularly as I think Ms Walshe may have been disconnected again. As an important clarification on the notification date for local authorities, my understanding is that the Bill being brought forward will push back by a few weeks the valuation date for the non-revaluation years, from the end of September to mid-October, which I hope will be of some assistance to local authorities and may alleviate some of those issues. It does not get around the fact that revaluation year involves a particular set of circumstances, and that has to work to an earlier deadline in August. It is proposed in the general scheme to push that back, so that will give a bit more leeway.

On vacant properties, LPT in the current valuation scenario will continue to be based on that value of the property which does not take into account whether the property is vacant. We are asking people to put a value on their property as they expect it to be on 1 November 2021, taking into account whatever condition in which they expect it to be on that date. Whether it is vacant will not impact on that.

Nevertheless, our proposal for this year is that we are going to use the revaluation exercise and the sending-out of returns to collect a bit more information on the number of vacant properties out there. As I am sure members will be well aware, there is, perhaps, confusing evidence regarding exactly how many properties are vacant and how many of them are holiday homes versus those that have been vacant for longer term or shorter term reasons. We will use the revaluation exercise to collect more information on how many properties are vacant or unoccupied on 1 November and the reason for that vacancy. I stress that that will be for purely statistical information purposes. We are not in any way proposing, and there are no plans at the moment, to vary the charge for LPT based on whether a property is occupied.