Noel Harrington (Cork South West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome Deputy Cowen's Bill which results from the frustration of many people about the inflexible and hard regime that the existing rates legislation imposes on many voluntary organisations, clubs and social structures. During the more than 12 years I spent as a member of a local authority, not a week went by without a debate about how rates were being imposed and dealt with in each of the local areas. I do not think the experience has been different in any local authority in the country. I have a particular issue with the manner in which sports clubs are pitted against each other. Affluent clubs that are involved in commercial activity are able to steal a march on clubs that are not involved in such activity. In many towns and villages, clubs are competing against businesses that have to pay high rates and view the commercial side of GAA clubs and other sports clubs as a potential and reasonable threat. Many people are quite willing to go to clubs for different social events and thereby avoid going to commercial facilities that pay rates in villages and towns. It might be interesting to get the views of the head offices of large sporting organisations like the GAA, the FAI and the IRFU, which gave an interesting presentation to Members of the Oireachtas some time ago, on the imposition of rates on those organisation's larger structures. It is worth noting how they were dealt with under the rates revaluation process.

I would like any future legislation in this area to provide for all rates decisions to be referred back to local authorities. I suggest that this should happen as part of the restructuring of local government. I am not saying one sector or another should have an exemption from rates, as that is really not the way to go. There is a reasonable expectation that community groups and businesses will be treated equally, at national or local level, under the rates legislation. If the members of a local authority want to give some assistance to a particular group in the sporting or community sectors - I refer to a child care facility, for example - on the basis that it deserves some support, rather than giving the group an exemption by means of a behind-the-scenes arrangement under legislation, I would prefer if they were required to argue in favour of such a decision in public at a local authority meeting. If the members of the local authority had to debate the loss of revenue that might result from such a decision, or indeed the additional revenue that might accrue from it, we would have a far more open process. I feel much more strongly about this bigger issue. Fundamentally, I do not like the current system which allows the Valuation Office to dictate the rates infrastructure to businesses and local authorities. It would be far more transparent and democratic and for more predictable for businesses if each local authority had full decision-making powers regarding how rates are imposed. If such a system were in place, we could let the cards fall where they may.

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