Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy. This is still a work in progress and no Government decision has been made yet. However, there are two things I can say. I appreciate that there is a feeling out there that because people's house values have increased to such an extent in the past couple of years, they will see a corresponding increase in their property tax rates. That will not happen. We will reform the bands and the rates to ensure any increase is modest. In many cases, there will be no increases at all while some may even see a reduction, depending on the value of their homes. None of these changes will take effect in 2019. Any changes will take effect in 2020 at the earliest. On local authorities being allowed to retain the money paid, many people wish to see the property taxes they pay stay in their counties. That makes sense to me. If we are to provide for that, we will have to continue to have an equalisation fund to ensure less well-off counties do not lose out. However, that could be funded from central taxation rather than the local property tax.

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