Mr. John O'Sullivan:

As much as 70% to 80% of the 4% do not actually go to a hearing. Roughly, it probably would be the order of 1% or 2% would typically go to a hearing before the tribunal.

On the outcome of appeals before the tribunal, it very much depends case-by-case, the size of the cases and the volume of the cases. The statistics I can give you, which would be from the two most recent revaluations that would have been before the tribunal, for Limerick and Waterford. The statistics associated with that are that at this stage a loss to the valuations for Limerick and Waterford would be as follows. For Limerick, looking at two-thirds of the outcomes, 0.3 of 1% would have been the reduction in the overall value of the Limerick City and County Council valuation list, as a result of the two-thirds of the appeals that were made. There were 68 appeals made. I am looking at stats here that show me the outcome of the first 45 of those. Waterford was quite similar. Seventy four cases appealed with three quarters of those being dealt with and 0.44 of 1% was the overall impact.

On the points made by the Deputy, we very much appreciate the impact that revaluation and rates have on local businesses. We meet ratepayers every day. We have met representative bodies as recently as yesterday morning when we had a meeting with one of the representative bodies.

The real problem here is that this is long overdue and we are seeing the more severe impact as a result of that. When we do second and subsequent revaluations we do not expect to see the same outcome as such at all. We would expect really that a lot of the difficulties here are being faced the first time around because, as the Deputy says, it has been 30 years since some of these have been looked at.