Alan Kelly (Labour)

I move recommendation No. 5:

In page 11, before section 1, to insert the following new section:

"PART 1

TAX RELIEF AT SOURCE

1.—Tax relief at source shall be available for environmental service charges.".

I hope this will be considered favourably. We believe the tax relief on environmental service charges, including bin charges etc. should be applied at source. There is considerable under-claiming of these reliefs, particularly in Dublin. Given the number of environmental service providers we have — I note the announcements of changes recently particularly in Dublin — and taking into account all the local authorities, most of which provide some of these services or award them in some cases to private contractors, it is difficult to fathom why we cannot have a central system for doing this. Households in most parts of the country are being billed. By doing this we would provide a process by which the householders would be able to get the benefit of the relief while importantly taking away the bureaucracy. As with the other recommendations on which I have spoken, it would help to reduce the number of residents who are not benefiting from the relief they should be getting and would eliminate the administrative burden.