Mattie McGrath (Tipperary South, Fianna Fail)

In October 2008, as part of its budget, the Government announced it would introduce a €200 charge on non-principal residences. The legislation necessary to give effect to this was published by the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy John Gormley, on 24 June 2009. The bill brought forward, the Local Government (Charges) Bill 2009, will give effect to last October's budget decision.

The €200 charge proposed in the Bill will apply to the owners of residential rental property, holiday homes and vacant properties, unless the vacant property is newly constructed but unsold. It is estimated that the new charge will provide some €40 million in revenue to county and city councils each year and that the charges will be collected and retained by local authorities. This is a good step. However, the actual yield will only be known once collection of the charges by the local authorities begins. The Bill represents the first important revenue stream for local authorities since the abolition of domestic rates over 30 years ago and it will provide access to much needed funds.

We all recognise that councils carry out very important work in the area of water schemes, road improvements, infrastructure and tourism, etc. However, some of that work has been jeopardised this year due to the drastic decline in development levies and other cuts. This new measure is significant in that it recognises that local authorities require a stable revenue stream that is independent of central government funding. These moneys will not only reduce local authorities' dependence on central funding, but will provide a stable income stream, as this is not a transaction based tax. In other words, the charge will not be affected by economic conditions in the way that stamp duty or capital gains tax were.

The County and City Managers Association, CCMA, recently proposed the introduction of a local property tax as a mean of raising funds locally. The new property tax will be collected each year on a day known as the "liability date". The Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government will choose the liability date for 2009. Failure to pay the charge within the relevant period will result in a late payment fee of €20 for each month or part of a month that the charge remains unpaid. A grace period of one month will be allowed before the late payment fees start to take effect. Any unpaid charges will be a charge against the property. This means that if the property is sold, those charges will remain against the property for a period of 12 years. Non-compliance with the charge will be considered an offence.

The person liable for the charge is defined as the "owner", that is the person to whom rent on the building concerned is payable, or would be payable if it was rented. The owner of the residential property shall be liable for the charge on the specific liability date and he or she shall pay it to the local authority in whose area the property is situated. The Minister may also increase the charge of €200 in line with inflation.

Not all residential properties are categorised in the Bill under the title "non principal residences". Those houses that will not be subject to the €200 charge are those that are newly constructed but unsold, those of particular heritage value, those let by certain public authorities, those that are the subject of a shared ownership arrangement with a housing authority and those that are owned by voluntary housing bodies or those that are the subject of a contractual arrangement with a housing authority. As someone who was involved in the social housing area as a councillor, I welcome this on behalf of all the voluntary bodies throughout the country who do so much work in the area of voluntary housing and meeting housing needs.

The Bill provides for a number of exemptions from payment of the charge, such as the temporary ownership of a second home used for a short period while moving house. In this case, a person may have the €200 charge refunded, but must dispose of the original property within six months of the liability date. I welcome the amendment that specifically provides that those in nursing homes will not be subject to a €200 charge on their home. Granny flats will also be exempt, where the owners or parents live in the second house on the land within a specified distance of the main house. A person going through a judicial divorce or separation resulting in one of the spouses buying a second house will also be exempt, provided this is to be used as the main residence of the other spouse. Owners of principal private residences who occupy their property as their principal private residence, but who let out rooms within it will also be exempt from the charge.

I wish to comment on a number of other areas concerning local government. We all understand the importance of the functions of local government. I served on a local authority for a number of years, as I am sure did many Members before the ending of the dual mandate. Local authorities face significant issues, such as the provision of housing, the provision and maintenance of roads, the maintenance of the environment and water and sewerage infrastructure. These are vital issues at this time. The county development plans are also of significant importance in each local authority area. Local councils work hard with planners to try and get the best deal for everybody within those plans.

Planning and enforcement are another issue. I compliment planners in the main, particularly those who in recent years fought and worked hard against the pressures for huge developments in our towns, villages and the countryside. They often got stick from us for that resistance, but I compliment them on the job they did. They held the reins as well as they could. We now concede we have an over-supply of houses and housing schemes in some areas. Developers went a bit mad in the Celtic tiger years, but those years are now over.

I must pay tribute to the planning officer in my area, Mr. Michael Lynch in the South Tipperary County Council. I pay tribute to planners who worked hard, despite criticism and who held the line. However, I now ask planners and county managers - I have asked the county manager in my county and his director of services to do this - to make the planning process more accessible, particularly for rural dwellers as there are many issues in that regard. A more accessible planning process would also act as a boost to the construction industry. Better incentives would encourage people with business ideas and plans.

I am aware of such people in my constituency who have found there is too much red tape and that planning approval takes far too long to obtain. Third parties are entitled to object, raise issues and appeal to An Bord Pleanála. I am aware of planning issues continuing for the past six years with regard to a hotel in my own town. This was a landmark building that ceased operating as a hotel and became derelict. Now a brave developer and his associates want to turn it into a badly needed car park, with 460-odd car-parking spaces and some retail units. This would be a lovely development for a centre of town site at a time when many towns, including my town of Clonmel, are dying and cannot survive because business are moving out from them to new clusters on the outskirts of towns. However, planning in this case has been an issue. An Taisce and the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government both took appeals to An Bord Pleanála. This process has gone on for years but, thankfully, in recent weeks the board made a decision and gave the green light. I am concerned about An Taisce's role. While it has an important role and is interested in conservation and other issues, some of its judgments, certainly in my constituency, must be questioned.

Delay will cause the loss of many projects because the process is too expensive, time-consuming and exhaustive. In many cases developers are forced to walk away. These issues arise in my own town of Clonmel with regard to major developments. An Taisce should be more up-front and have greater accessibility. Developers need to get the message immediately that a development is too large or has too much of an impact on the roads and not find this out following a series of meetings. One of the cases to which I refer comes under the remit of three local authorities, Clonmel Borough Council, South Tipperary County Council and Waterford County Council. It is a nightmare to organise and facilitate meetings, to get the people one needs at these meetings and to get the process on the road. It is costing too much, particularly for developers, is too cumbersome and is frustrating people with initiative.

I welcome the development of the new motorway. The travel time to Dublin has been significantly decreased, which is great for travellers from Cork and other areas on the route to Dublin. While I understand compulsory purchase orders are a tool that must be used, the non-payment to farmers, householders and ordinary families is an issue. While the road has been opened and the developer has been relieved of his duties, many landowners and families have been left unpaid, which is unfair. The contractor and those who worked on the road have been paid, rightly so, and the tolls are being paid by motorists travelling on the Cork section of the road, so it is not acceptable that the families who expected to be paid under CPOs have been left in a position of uncertainty.

I have an issue with regard to transient traders. I refuse to call them Travellers. Although I have heard their various representative bodies call them Travellers, they are not Travellers but transient traders who have come in marauding gangs onto huge tracts of land on the motorway. I do not know why this land was needed and, when it was not used, it should have been given back or sold back to the landowners. We have a major problem moving these traders from place to place. They do not pay rates, I doubt they pay income tax, despite driving the finest of vehicles, and they are very intimidating.

I visited a site on Monday where a new road was built to give access to lands which had severed by the new motorway. The road was blocked and I had to ask them to move to let me through. They questioned me as to what my business was on that public road. The gardaí and the council officials do their best, to be fair, but the Roads Act 1993 will have to be strengthened. I do not know if all aspects of the current Act are being employed by the county council. We are too slow to implement the legislation because these people need to experience the full rigours of the law. They create hell for everybody living in the vicinity, they intimidate people and they are carrying out business.

The businesspeople in all of our towns and villages pay their rates and insurance, and pay their staff, and they must deal with NERA and the many other agencies dealing with health and safety, food safety and so on which ensure standards are maintained. I would sometimes question whether the standards are too high and they make it extremely expensive for businesspeople to trade. The current debate on rates is based on wrong premises as it is based on a valuation from 2005 or 2006 whereas the valuation from, say, 2000 would be more realistic. People simply cannot afford to pay the current level of rates. Different statements have been made by the different parties in recent months with regard to freezing or lowering rates but we must seriously consider this issue because many business are unable, though not unwilling, to pay. While there were minimal increases in rates this year, there are increases year on year.

It is not easy for the ratepayers, for whom I feel sorry as they are the ones in the centre of our villages and towns carrying out business in the long term. Most are indigenous, family businesses which must pay all the time even though the business is being sucked out to the new developments on the outskirts of the towns. While I welcome that a new Marks & Spencer has opened in Clonmel, this type of development is sucking the business from the main streets and leaving semi-derelict areas in the main streets. Some property developers were too greedy and bought many properties and charged too high a rent. We have to force down the cost of business and this Bill should address this area, particularly with regard to rates, by allowing for other streams of income for local authorities.

The issue of cuts by local authorities has become a big issue recently, including in my constituency where the county manager informed a council meeting on Monday last that he must achieve €5 million in cuts before the end of the year, which is draconian. We should not need to have an bord snip nua - it is a terrible name - because we should have been minding the stable before the horse bolted, or before the tiger disappeared. My issue during the first round of cuts last year was that the first staff let go by the local authority were the ground, outdoor and temporary staff, who were the people providing the services on the ground. The local authority is top-heavy, with a plethora of managers, including the county manager, the director of services and many engineers, but it is the staff working in services on the ground and in amenities who are let go.

This policy will cost more in the long run. If we have a bad winter and maintenance is not done, the roads will be significantly undermined, particularly given the effect of climate change. We have seen the result of heavy rain in Mayo and Donegal, which has caused much damage to roads. It is more foot soldiers that we need; we have all chiefs and very few Indians, if the House will pardon the pun. This is happening throughout the country. When I first joined the county council, there was a county manager, county engineer, county secretary and a range of engineers, and there is now a plethora of directors' services and their staff, most of whom got their bonuses last December in the middle of this crisis.

I pay tribute to the staff of the local authorities, who work very hard and are often criticised. The outdoor staff must deal with all kinds of situations, including some very unsavoury ones such as when the traders leave. We pay for our bins and pay our litter fines but these people leave a mess behind them. Who must look after this? It is the ordinary council workers. There are not enough of them and while they do a vital job and provide a good service, the dignity of the job is not being respected. They need to be supported and not made to accept cuts and three-day weeks and four-day weeks. Will we have the offices staffed but no staff on the ground to look after the necessary work?

Health and safety is an issue in this regard. There is no hedge cutting in south Tipperary and exiting from junctions and culs-de-sac is a danger. Health and safety has gone over the top in some areas but there are glaring anomalies and places where it is being compromised not just because of lack of resources, but also because of the management of those resources, which I seriously question. We will have to get the County and City Managers' Association back before the committees of the Houses to try to get a change of emphasis. I feel very strongly about this issue. They are making it too difficult for people to trade and stifling initiative. There is the issue of parking charges and development charges that have been introduced in recent years. I supported them because many community facilities have received a good deal of money.

I compliment those who operated the scheme within the council as well for the encouragement they gave various communities. The local communities are the real enablers and nothing would be done in the community by Government or local authorities without them. These people endure sleepless nights and establish committees limited by guarantee to organise planning and they have the vision to put in place the infrastructure.

The community development levy for recreation schemes has been an asset, which is the reason I support it. However, we now must re-examine the matter. We need clarity because there are rumours that vast sums of money remain in local authorities' deposit accounts. It is suggested these are from the levies paid on road, infrastructure and sewerage and water charges. The matter should be sorted out and the rumour is not appropriate but I am unsure whether it is true. It is suggested one council has a certain amount and another has yet another amount. However it is unclear if the money has been collected. If the money is available it should be spent and there is no point in leaving it holed up in a deposit account; it should be spent on the services needed. I wish the Minister well with the Bill and I commend it to the House.

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