Dominic Hannigan (Meath East, Labour)
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Question 265: To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform the position regarding the schedule for revaluations of commercial properties for the purpose of commercial rates in County Meath; his plans for a redeployment of staff to the Valuation Office in order that areas outside of Dublin may have their rates reassessed; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [3897/12]

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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The revaluation programme began in November 2005 in the South Dublin County Council area where it was completed in 2007. It has since been completed in the Fingal County Council area in 2009 and in Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown in 2010. The revaluation of the Dublin City Council area was commenced in May 2011, which entails the valuation of approximately 25,000 properties and the new list will be published in 2013.

As part of the roll-out of the revaluation programme to other local authority areas, the Commissioner signed the valuation order on 12 December, 2011 to commence the revaluation of the Waterford City, Waterford County and Dungarvan Town Council areas. As required by statute, he has also advanced the formal consultations with Limerick City and Limerick County Council to the stage where he will shortly be in a position to sign valuation orders for those areas. It is intended to extend the revaluation programme to further local authority areas as soon as it is practicable to do so; however it is not yet decided when the revaluation work will commence in County Meath.

Following detailed examination of various possibilities over the past few months intended to speed up the revaluation programme, the Commissioner of Valuation has concluded that it may be feasible to introduce a Self Assessment approach, accompanied by appropriate controls, and that it might be possible also to outsource some of the work. As well as helping to speed up the national programme an element of outsourcing, if it proves practicable, would allow comparison of the Valuation Office productivity and costs with those in the private sector. The enabling provisions to allow for these changes are included in proposals for amending legislation which were approved by Government on 6 December, 2011 and are now with the Attorney General's Office for drafting of the proposed Valuation (Amendment) Bill. Preparatory work is continuing in drawing up the detailed schemes and, subject to the enactment of the legislation and availability of the necessary resources, I understand that the intention would be to initiate pilot revaluations using the self-assessment and outsourcing options in two local authority areas.

Because of the complexity and the specialist nature of valuation work requiring staff with suitable professional qualifications, re-deployment of non-specialist staff from other Departments to do core valuation work is not considered to be a viable option. However, as a further means of speeding up the revaluation programme generally and to accelerate the necessary capture of data on properties throughout the country, in advance of the roll-out to particular areas, a dedicated data-capture unit is being set up which might hold potential to take on a number of suitable staff under the JobBridge scheme being sponsored by the Department of Social Protection and this option is being pursued at present.