Seán Canney (Galway East, Independent) | Oireachtas source

We are dealing with State revenues after all and it behoves us to be as rigorous as possible in our assessment of costs. I note in this regard that for tax exemptions with an annual estimated cost of between €10 million and €50 million, the Department of Finance guidelines for tax expenditures state that they must be subject to a detailed ex ante assessment, entailing a scenario-based analysis or similar, and are also to include a statement of proposed methods and data requirements for full ex postcost-benefit analysis.

I also note that the Deputy's colleague, Deputy Fleming, introduced the Management Fees (Local Property Tax) Relief Bill 2015 which contained provisions identical to those of the Bill now before the House. Deputy Fleming estimated that the cost of that Bill's measures was approximately €17 million in a full year. He also indicated that this estimate had been made on the basis that approximately 200,000 dwellings would benefit in the amount of €86 each on average. Having accepted that local property tax is an important element of local government funding, where does Deputy O'Brien now propose that this significant funding gap be made up? What particular categories of taxpayer is he proposing should pay more to make up the shortfall? Perhaps he has ideas on the particular services in communities that would suffer cuts as a result of his proposal.

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