Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

This amendment facilitates the appointment of an agent by the occupier of a property for the purpose of receiving a certificate, notice or other document under the Act. The amendment recognises that a significant number of property occupiers or owners retain agents to represent their interests when interfacing with the Valuation Office on valuation business.

The amendment also proposes the insertion of a new section to enable better data sharing. The purpose of the amendment is to formalise the sharing of data between the Valuation Office and other public sector organisations. The Valuation Office is an organisation with an extensive reliance on information in order to carry out its statutory functions. Some of its information has already been captured by other public sector organisations as part of their remit. As part of its valuation service function, it also solicits information directly from ratepayers, but it is often not in a position to validate the accuracy or completeness of such data without recourse to other data sets. Without appropriate data-sharing arrangements, the office is sometimes required to duplicate the information collection process by requesting the information from the ratepayer again, with the attendant cost and efficiency implications for all parties.

The most obvious and important example is the information held by each local authority. It is evident that the Valuation Office which is ultimately performing its functions for the purpose of local authorities levying rates should have efficient data-sharing arrangements in place with local authorities in order to avoid duplication of effort, minimise inconsistency in data quality and to reduce the administrative burden which the State is placing on the ratepayer.

The Department of Public Expenditure and Reform and the Valuation Office note and accept the principles of data sharing in the public sector which the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner has put in place. There are compelling benefits to be derived from putting appropriate data-sharing arrangements in place to facilitate the Valuation Office in producing valuation lists that are fair, equitable and transparent. Such arrangements will be sufficiently precise and proportionate so as to have minimal impact on individual ratepayer's data protection and privacy rights. In general, the data in question are not perceived as data of a personal nature within the meaning of the Data Protection Act 1988 and the Data Protection (Amendment) Act 2003. The extent of the data and their use will, of course, be limited to what the Valuation Office will require in the performance of its statutory mandate. Each data-sharing arrangement will be governed by a protocol which will be subject to the oversight of the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner.