Thomas Byrne (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

This amendment causes severe difficulty. Constitutional issues have been raised over the effect of the amendment. Later in the legislation the Valuation Tribunal is required to determine the value of a property on an appeal and one that accords with the results required to be achieved by section 19(5), the criteria the Minister of State just set out.

It seems sensible that there be equity and uniformity of value between comparable properties and parties on the valuation list, and the Minister of State has outlined this, but various interested parties have sought legal advice on this area of the legislation. Some of these parties have met the Minister of State to discuss this and I spoke privately to him in Oldbridge, County Meath, to alert him to difficulties with some aspects of the Bill, such as this. Some parties believe the proposed amendment is actually a response to the Commissioner of Valuation and to the determinations of the Valuation Tribunal in a number of appeals brought by ratepayers that ended up in the High Court. There was a famous case relating to the Carlton Hotel - in one case six ratepayers received an appeal against the certificate of value relating to their property.

The tribunal, in its determination, referred to the difficulties encountered by the Commissioner of Valuation in gathering appropriate information from other similar businesses in the area. The tribunal noted comparative evidence was offered but was not persuaded it was decisive. The tribunal came to a conclusion in those cases that, I am advised, would not be possible if this section is put in place. It has been suggested to me that this new section is designed to prevent a situation like the one that arose in the Carlton Hotel case, which is responsible for many of these reforms.

We suggested that the original Bill sought to override these cases and the Minister of State's predecessors took over a year to change this. The legal advice I have received says the amendment will achieve exactly what we objected to last time. The new section 19(5) was designed to prevent the Valuation Tribunal from operating as it did in those cases. If the Commissioner of Valuation applies a particular method during a revaluation of properties such as hotels, licensed premises, petrol stations, nursing homes and other properties where the net annual value is not readily ascertainable by comparison with the rents of similar properties, a ratepayer who, with expert evidence, challenges the method chosen by the commissioner in an appeal to the tribunal will be met with the reply that, if the commissioner's chosen method is set aside and another method is applied by the tribunal to achieve a more accurate result, it will distort the uniformity of value between the ratepayer's property and the properties of those who chose not to appeal. It is difficult to understand why a ratepayer who has appealed against a valuation should be placed at a disadvantage because other ratepayers may have failed or neglected to appeal.

I thank the various hotels and organisations that challenged the rate valuations in Fingal because they achieved something, namely, this legislation. We now wish to make sure the legislation does not prevent such challenges in future. The effect of this provision would be to prevent such cases proceeding. A ratepayer would be able to challenge the application of the commissioner's chosen method of valuation but not the method itself. I suggest that the effect of the proposed section 19(5) is almost identical to what I objected to before and I understood this was going to be changed. I suggest that what is proposed is unconstitutional for the same reason that I objected previously. The Minister of State needs to re-examine this, though I know much work has gone into it. Assurances were given that issues such as this would not arise so it needs to be looked at. Perhaps the Minister or Minister of State could meet the various interested parties as they are representatives of affected businesses around the country with no hidden agendas. I will oppose this section and I ask the Minister of State to think again.