Phil Hogan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael)

We had no comprehensive database of property, which meant we could not send a bill to people. An Post did not win the tender to deliver the leaflet, another company won it, although I have concerns about the manner in which it did that, which I will deal with in another way.

The extension of the deadline to September was proposed by Fianna Fáil and I rejected that. I operate on the basis that people will come up to a deadline and then pay. That is what happened, with 25% paying within a week of the deadline. If the deadline is extended, people will wait for that deadline to pay. We will process those who decided to pay at the 11th hour through An Post and that process will be completed in the next week or two. People will then get reminders in the same way as any payment that is needed for any utility. The data sharing protocols are in place to allow local authorities to send out letters over the summer. Ultimately people must decide if they want to comply with the law or not and if they do not comply with the law, they face litigation.

I accept there were difficulties with the categorisation of unfinished estates. Only categories 3 and 4 were eligible for the exemption, estates that were largely in receivership or liquidation, or that were very badly unfinished. The survey that was carried out did not capture all of them so we have asked local authorities to look at these matters in the light of genuine errors that were made and that city managers and county managers look at those sympathetically.

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