Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will also be happy to tease out the issues on Report Stage. This Bill is an honest attempt to improve the situation. The Senator is quite correct that it is not abolishing all rates for all sports clubs. Commercial activity will still be rateable, but Senator Byrne will have to agree that it will improve the current situation. It will lessen the rates bill. Under current law, if there is commercial activity the entire place is rateable. We are trying to move beyond that. I welcome the Senator's views on that.
Senator van Turnhout and other Senators raised issues relating to child care. I am eager to try to do something on this issue, but I am anxious to tease it out as well. It is not as straightforward as I thought when I first looked at it, but I am still hopeful we can do something on it. The current legal position is that there are three categories of child care providers under legislation. One is charitable organisations which provide child care facilities for charitable purposes and other than for profit. These are exempt. If a charity is running a crèche for disadvantaged families, it would not pay any rates. However, it must be exclusively charitable. Second, there are ECCI-only providers, early childhood cluster initiative. If the preschool year is the only service provided in the preschool in the premises, it is exempt.
The third category is everybody else. To be truthful, that category is too big. I accept the Senator's argument that something should be done for them. It is a fair point. The fact that a charitable crèche or child care provider is exempt and a not-for-profit provider is not is a very difficult position to defend. However, this is where one encounters the technical difficulty and it is the reason I cannot give a commitment to the House, although I am earnestly trying to do something about it. With respect to what we have done with the sports clubs, whether one agrees or disagrees with it, it is possible to separate the sports clubs physically. One can point to the bar and say that room is rateable, but the rest of the club is not. It is harder to decouple the children who are paying, the children who are not paying, the children funded by Pobal and, perhaps, the children paying full fees. The children will move around. It is a valuations Bill and it is trickier to work out the decoupling physically.
It is also important to point out that valuations tend to be fixed. Again, whatever modality one uses would have to recognise that the valuation will be fixed for a period of years. The number of children in certain schemes or being paid for by a certain method might change, but the valuation model does not offer the opportunity to revise that every year with a new intake of children in September. Those are the difficulties.
The Senator also referred to the lack of consistency. I met a number of child care providers recently and they raised this point. A crèche in one county might be exempt and a child care provider in another county might not. Even within counties there is definitely a lack of consistency and I am anxious to use this legislation to try to achieve consistency and fairness.
I will examine the point made by the Senator about the State curriculum, but if I am able to make a targeted intervention I am inclined to look at the group with charitable status and not-for-profit that is currently paying rates. I look forward to Report Stage to see where we can go in that regard.
Senator Paul Coghlan raised the issue of out-of-town car parking. Indeed, his Valuation (Amendment) Bill 2013 was discussed in this House on 12 December last. We have had a number of conversations about this. The Bill sought to provide for the valuation of car parking spaces for rate purposes in retail centres. It provided that the value of any car parking spaces should be determined on the basis of the annual charge calculated by reference to the higher of the local authority charge for parking or the cost levy on shoppers for the use of the space concerned. The Minister, Deputy Howlin, accepted the Bill because he understood what the Senator was trying to do.
My officials have explored the intent of what the Senator is trying to achieve, which I consider to be important, and the advice I have received is that the Valuation Act 2001 already provides for the valuation and rating of car parking spaces in retail centres. Where there is a charge for car parking, the car park is valued separately and entered on the valuation list. Some car parking facilities carry significant valuations. In shopping centres where there is no charge this often reflects the terms of the retailer's lease and the value of the car parking is deemed to be subsumed into the rateable value fixed on the retail units in that centre. Parking facilities will be reflected in the premium on the rent paid, and higher rents mean higher valuations and higher rates. To use the method of valuation proposed could be at variance with the norms of valuation enshrined in legislation and encoded in practice both here and internationally and could have significant implications for rating legislation.
I am aware of what Senator Coghlan is trying to achieve and my officials tell me we are largely achieving it. I suggest that Senator Coghlan meet with my officials between now and Report Stage to tease out the concept and to assure himself that we are on the same page in this regard.
With regard to nursing homes, Senator Sheahan is correct that the legislation does not propose a change and I accept that it causes him concern. The Valuation (Amendment) (No. 2) Bill cannot be the answer to all the ills and ailments facing society. It is a valuations Bill and there are other ways the State can, should and does provide intervention relating to nursing home support, care of older people and support for the elderly. Do we want a situation whereby the State differentiates between businesses, both of which are making profit, based on the service they are providing? That is a genuine, broad policy question that can be debated, but it is a slippery slope if the State can decide that the Senator's profitable business on the main street in Tralee is more important than my profitable business on the same main street in Tralee. That is the question that must be examined.
The Senator asked a question about the cost. I will try to gather some statistics in that regard and refer back to him.
The other point I should make, which is applicable to the arguments I have made relating to sports, child care and nursing homes, is that for every person who is taken out of the rates or valuation system or for every valuation reduction, the pie remains the same and somebody else must pay. If a profitable nursing home or a nursing home established for the purpose of making a profit is removed from valuation, somebody else in that locality will see an increase in their valuation. It is a balance and we are earnestly trying to get it right.