Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Government did not bring in the legislation. The document we received indicated the hope that the legislation published in 2012 - some two and a half years ago - would have been enacted last year. It is only being introduced now. The Government has missed the boat. It has not even bolted the door after the horse has gone, as it was a bad door and bad stable to start with. The horse is better off out of the stable.

This amalgamation issue must be examined. The subheading for this year requests funding for ongoing development of strategic ICT and geographic information systems that are required, pending the amalgamation. There is no timescale on the process but this would be a great way to slow down the system. A figure has been provided for the pilot self-assessment or occupier-assisted valuation scheme but it is only mentioned for one local authority area. There is a simpler way to deal with it. The targets for 2015 are only to move on for the Valuation Office orders for Galway city and counties Carlow and Kilkenny. The Government believes the rest of the authorities will be done in the next four years.

The Government wants to complete the required global valuations and asset valuation mechanisms. Irish Water comes into this, so will we get a briefing note on Committee Stage on the protocol used by the Valuation Office to value Irish Water? That has never been done before. The Minister has mentioned a figure of €60 million but nobody knows where that came from. We want to see it worked out, as I indicated at the committee, and we want to see how the global valuation for Irish Water is formulated before we pass the legislation. We will have amendments in that respect.

This is a 19th century system and two thirds of it has gone with the elimination of agricultural and domestic rates. This should have been done 20 or 30 years ago and we should now have a self-assessment system, like every other tax in the country. The amount should be based on profitability, level of business and ability to pay. None of this is included in the legislation, which is why we oppose it.

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