Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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My key point in my consideration of this issue is that when I looked at the different options I would have considered, the committee independently reached the same view on them, namely, that we either maintain a national rate or that we allow local authorities to deliver the same yield by county but that they have the ability to vary the rate. It became obvious to me that while it was possible to maintain the total yield from the LPT and for it to remain unchanged, it was challenging to provide for every single individual property owner to be in a position where his or her bill would be unchanged.

The exceptional geographical diversity here means an unchanged national yield of the LPT is not the same as an unchanged liability for everyone who is currently paying it. That is because of the differing rates of increase in property values across the country. I have furnished to the committee the detail of the different options it considered and which I also considered independently of the committee. If the committee is in a position to form a view on any of the five scenarios I have put forward, this would be helpful for me in what I will need to do later in the year. I am conscious that I need to assemble a majority within this committee to support changes that we will have to enact early next year.