Lorraine Higgins (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for coming to the House today. I am worried about a matter arising from the Local Government Bill 2013, the potential for rates to apply to unused or closed commercial premises and units. Will the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government devolve responsibility to local authorities to make the decision on the potential for application of rates on these closed buildings? High rates are the single biggest reason that many shop units lie empty in our towns. My home town, Athenry in County Galway, has been hit especially hard with up to 30 vacant units. There are also many vacant in Gort, Loughrea, Portumna and Tuam as a consequence of this business cost. There is no doubt that rates deter people from going into business and this needs to be examined. I have always thought it unfair to ask the business people of each county to shoulder the main responsibility for funding local authorities. With the advent of the local property tax this must be reconsidered.

For the purposes of this evening's debate, however, I want to focus on the proposal to charge rates on closed commercial properties. Members of the Opposition have recently said that the Government will apply a 50% rate on commercial properties that are closed. Despite these utterances a cross-party delegation from Galway met with the senior Minister in the Department, which was under Fianna Fáil and Independents at the time, who was in favour of levying a 50% charge on closed commercial premises. I have reservations about this.

Galway city is no doubt very different to Galway county. There is a demand for commercial properties in Galway city, not least because of the footfall, the number of tourists visiting and population figures. On the other hand, my own constituency of Galway East is like many other rural constituencies throughout Ireland where there are a plethora of shop units and other commercial units vacant and no demand for them. However, this proposal would disadvantage them further.

On that basis, I appeal to the Minister of State and the Department to ensure that local authorities have discretion to make a decision on the application of rates on closed commercial properties. Local authorities are best placed to decide this, given they are most familiar with the particular circumstances of our county towns. For example, it would be ludicrous to charge rates on vacant premises in places like Athenry, Loughrea, Portumna and Gort in County Galway which, as I said, have a large number of units vacant due to the lack of demand for them. The local authorities would surely recognise this. I do not believe it makes sense to allow a Dublin bureaucrat to make the rules when a local authority would have a much better idea as to how to adequately fund itself, while applying fair rates in a way that can be done by taking into consideration the particular circumstances of that town.

If we stick to the goal of the Local Government Bill, which is to give more power to the local authorities and to the people, by letting the local authorities decide how to charge rates and whether they should apply rates on these buildings in these circumstances, this would help businesses and, therefore, our overall economy, as well as local government. Our programme for Government called for reform to put people first and I believe we need to do everything to ensure we are always doing that. To be fair, the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government does just that. Nonetheless, by devolving this responsibility with regard to rates on closed premises to the local authorities, we would be putting the people first.