Mr. Niall Cody:

In my opening statement I stated the figure for the payment of the household charge at this stage is €45 million. The figure of €95 million was theoretically possible if the gap between the LPT register and the household charge related to a property. We have done a raft of matching. There is a difference in the number as some paid the household charge under a different name. We have been going through the gap in the registers. We had hoped to get to do this work earlier than we did because we were trying to get the LPT register right. The household charge was €100. In the legislation to bring in LPT, the unpaid household charge was capped at €130 if it was paid before April 2013 but rose to €200 if it remained unpaid at 1 July 2013. It doubled. We started a process.

The household charge has been the hardest property related tax to collect. The household charge was very unpopular. No one was asked in writing for the money. The local authorities did not write to everyone asking them to pay the household charge. When we asked people to pay the household charge and penalty, which amounted to €200, the usual response was that no one had asked them for this payment when it was set at €100. Their response was: "I am not paying anything." We started the process of collection, and we have collected €45 million. Some 100,000 people who are paying their household charge and penalties are on phased payment arrangements. The Collector General told me this morning that €23,800.83 was paid in household charges yesterday. Approximately €25,000 a day is being paid and those who owe the household charge go into the post office and pay it on the drip. There are approximately 45,000 properties that we have not yet checked out. We are going through the list and we will write letters once we work out who owes the money. There are about 10,000 people who are deferring the household charge. As the household charge becomes the LPT, all the provisions in respect of LPT apply to the €200 charge. This charge will stay on the record of those properties.

We knew that collecting the household charge would be difficult. We had hoped we would collect between €40 million to €60 million and we will collect between €50 million and €60 million. It is a finite piece of work to get it on record. Another issue in regard to the household charge is proof of payment. People who had paid online with the Local Government Management Agency were fine. Members may recall that there was provision to pay the local authority €130 before 31 March 2013 and people were issued with a paper receipt. I remember the LGMA referring to the bags of payments and receipts they had at the end of the day. Some of the records are challenging. If a person has paid their LPT for 2013, 2014 and 2015 and he or she says the local authority was paid the €100 household charge, we will treat each case on its merits.