Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Group 1 comprises amendments Nos. 1 and 6.

I am pleased to be back in the Seanad, where we had a good hearing of this Bill and made a number of improvements to it based on suggestions from Senators on all sides of the House. In the Dáil we made one more improvement based on a suggestion by Deputy Sean Fleming and I need to bring that amendment to the House. There are also a number of technical amendments which we will go through.

Amendment No. 1 was introduced on Report Stage in the Dáil in response to an amendment proposed by Deputy Sean Fleming on Committee Stage. The objective of this amendment is to ensure that valid revision cases are concluded within six months of receipt rather than six months from the day of appointment of a revision manager. There is a weakness in the current legislation, as it provides that a revision case must be concluded within six months of its assignment to a revision officer but there is no limit on the period within which a revision case is assigned to that officer. The amendment accepted in the Dáil takes practical considerations into account and the six-month period starts from receipt of a valid application accompanied by any prescribed fee.

This new six-month deadline can be commenced separately from the rest of the Bill. This is prudent to allow the Valuation Office to bring all current revision cases up to date and work on changes to the valuation lists that will be required as a consequence of the extension of exemptions in this Bill.Providing this space will allow the Valuation Office to make the necessary operational changes to comply with this new deadline, which is a logical improvement to the administrative provisions in the Valuation Act. Amendment No. 6 adds a new subsection to the general commencement provision, which references the fact that the new section 14 has its own commencement provision.