Lorraine Higgins (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for coming to the House to deal with the need for Minister for Finance to outline the steps he is taking to ensure that standardised criteria are applied to unfinished estates in the calculation of the amount due in property tax. A large number of people were deemed to be living in unfinished estates and thereby got an exemption from last year's household charge. These same people are now baffled as to why they are not included in the local property tax exemption list. Many of them have a good case for feeling this way as in many cases the developer did not fully comply with the terms of the planning permission. These people were bona fide purchasers of houses in the boom times and contributed handsomely to the Exchequer at that time. They have now been let down and are living in estates which might be substantially complete but have residual problems.

People living in an estate in Craughwell, County Galway, made plans to move out because a sewage treatment plant had stopped working and there were other residual problems relating to the builders failure to build the estate. Among a plethora of planning permission breaches by the developer, the final coat of tar was not applied and there was no proper demarcation of common areas. This estate was developed in the early years of the boom. I am baffled as to why the bond was not drawn down on time in order to ensure these works were completed. The properties could have been taken in charge by the local authority.

The Minister for Finance should outline the criteria being applied to unfinished estates in the calculation of the property tax. Are the Department of Finance and the Revenue Commissioners taking into consideration the underlying problems in an estate and not merely looking at outdated and obsolete valuations of properties? Are they considering issues such as those affecting the estate I mentioned in Craughwell? I hope they would apply a subjective valuation as a means of providing a just, fair and equitable system of property tax application.