Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will outline the position with regard to amendments Nos. 45 and 62. Amendment No. 45 contains a new provision to equip the commissioner with additional authority in the context of addressing anomalies on the valuation list pending revaluation of the rating authority area. The commissioner will no longer be obliged to rely on the determinations of the Valuation Tribunal or the higher courts in order to address such anomalies. This amendment is designed to provide for exceptional circumstances where a decision by a revision manager not to change a valuation could lead to inequity and a lack or diminution of uniformity of value between certain properties in the same rating authority area. This would include situations where there has been no material change of circumstances to justify a revision under section 28. In such exceptional cases the commissioner will have discretionary powers to direct a revision manager to amend the valuation of a property which he or she considers to be inaccurate. When considering this matter initially, I took advice from rating consultants and I take this opportunity to thank the members of the Society of Chartered Surveyors in Ireland for their constructive dialogue during this discourse, which led to the preparation of the amendment.

It is also proposed to delete section 40 of the 2001 Act, which gives the commissioner discretionary power whereby if he or she amends a valuation list under section 38 in respect of a particular property - arising from a decision of the Valuation Tribunal or the High Court or Supreme Court - he or she may also amend, in a manner consonant with the relevant decision, that or any other valuation list with regard to each other property appearing on that list that he or she considers is similarly circumstanced.

The original purpose behind section 40 was to ensure equity and uniformity - as outlined in the Long Title and elsewhere in statute - so that if a valuation of a particular property was changed, the value of other similarly circumstanced properties could also be changed in order to maintain the relativity between them. As a result of the fact that the new section 29A of the 2001 Act, as inserted by amendment No. 45, will provide the commissioner with a similar but broader discretion, section 40 may now be deleted because it is superfluous. The key point is that the commissioner will no longer be obliged to await determinations of the Valuation Tribunal or the higher courts, as was heretofore the case in the context of section 40, and will now be better equipped to address anomalies on the valuation list pending revaluation. I am sure that, like me, Senators have been informed by stakeholders of instances where, as is an age-old problem, service stations have been bypassed by motorways. What we are doing will give the commissioner discretion to act in such circumstances.