Carol Nolan (Offaly, Independent)

I welcome this debate and many of the provisions of this Bill. I am aware that my local authority, Offaly County Council, generated approximately €4.9 million in local property tax revenues in 2024, but also that our baseline was €11.2 million. This means we received about €6.2 million in that 2025 distribution of equalisation funding. While that is welcome within the confines of the local property tax system, the heart of the matter remains the fundamental unfairness of LPT as a tax in and of itself. People work, save for years, pay their taxes and buy homes, and then they must continue to pay increasing rates of tax on those homes, which they may own outright, until the day they die. I note, however, that this legislation allows for tiered rates for higher valued properties to ensure they contribute proportionally more, aligning with principles of fairness in taxation. We all know, though, that house prices are radically out of step with actual value. There is scope for significant inequity to flow into the LPT system.

I welcome proposals to expand the LPT exemption for defective concrete blocks in some counties. I hope that if more counties are found to be impacted by this issue, they too will be shown similar latitude. What we should be doing, however, is finding every way possible to tax not the ordinary homeowner and ordinary worker but the massive vulture funds and investment funds that are swooping in and wiping out any possibility of Irish couples and families bidding on and owning their own homes. While we are here today discussing local property tax, we have to accept that we desperately need an urgent debate on how our taxation and property purchasing systems are facilitating the expansion of the housing collapse for ordinary people. I accept, as the LPT is apparently here to stay, that there is at least an attempt in this Bill to introduce a fairer LPT calculation method that supports homeowners affected by defective concrete blocks and to provide local authorities with greater flexibility and the ability to adjust deferral thresholds to account for inflation.

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