Pat Casey (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State, Deputy Phelan, for his statement and his engagement over the last number of years in regard to this Bill. My colleague, Deputy Cassells, outlined the critical role that commercial rates play in our local authorities. Fianna Fáil welcomes the majority of the provisions in this Bill, which seeks to modernise the commercial rates system and give our local representatives the power to introduce incentive schemes where they believe they are need, which is good for the democratic process. Equally, I welcome the amendment we discussed last week in committee in regard to the global and national revaluations. Local authorities such as Wicklow County Council will not be affected because it is having a national revaluation in the same year as a global revaluation but the council will not miss out. One of the controversial issues that arose last week was the revaluations by Irish Water which will commence this year, the impact that process will have on local authorities and how receipts will be divvied out to ensure that local authorities which have been rating their water infrastructure will not lose revenue because of the Irish Water valuation.

On the planning provisions of the Bill and the proposed amendment, my understanding is that this is required because the planning regulator office's was not established in time in regard to the process of the regional assemblies being brought forward and that it seeks to give the planning regulator an additional two weeks to review the draft plans with a view to confirming to the Minister that they are consistent with all national and regional policies but the Minister retains the power to take action, if required, to have the regional assemblies review them. Perhaps the Minister of State would confirm if my understanding of the amendment is correct.

Deputy Cassells mentioned the issue of inability to pay and the need for harmonisation of commercial rates in the case of properties that have not been revalued for 20 or 30 years and are hit with a revaluation. This is not the fault of the property owners. Rather, it is the fault of the system yet the property owner is asked to meet the cost of the revaluation, which in some cases can be a 200%, 300% or 400% in one year. Fianna Fáil's proposal, which was not supported, sought to harmonise payments over a number of years to remove the initial hard hit. Fianna Fáil's proposal on public consultation in regard to alleviation or abatement schemes is important. As a commercial ratepayer I know that a lot of commercial ratepayers do not understand the system. Anything we can do to bring transparency to the system and a greater understanding of how it works has to be welcomed. I am delighted the Minister has agreed with our amendment. I thank the staff for their work on the wording of the amendment.

The elephant in the room, which we all have to address at some stage, is the antiquated valuation process. I understand the Minister of State proposes to do work on it in the autumn. We need to bring an understanding to the valuation process because businesses cannot get their heads around it. Trying to explain that under zones A, B and C, the first 1 m in the door is rateable at a particular rate and the next 5 m is rateable at another rate and so on and how the value is calculated is complicated. This is the aspect that we still need to address going forward.

In general, Fianna Fáil is happy with the Local Government (Rates) Bill 2018 and we are willing to support it.

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