Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein)
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198. To ask the Minister for Finance the number of cases the Revenue Commissioners have identified of single properties being registered as multiple properties because the house address may be partly or entirely in Irish; if there is an issue with some datasets having house names and addresses primarily in Irish and others primarily in English; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [50746/13]

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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The Deputy will be aware that a key aspect of the work undertaken by Revenue was the development of a comprehensive Register of residential properties in the State. The Register was developed using data drawn from a range of sources including Revenue’s own databases, the Local Government Management Agency (LGMA) database and data from utility companies. I am advised by Revenue that data from the various sources was cross-checked to ensure that the Local Property Tax (LPT) Register was as accurate as possible prior the issue of correspondence to property owners earlier this year. Revenue compared property address details in one database with the address details in other databases and used data matching software to assist in the matching process. Given the tight timeframes involved in developing the LPT Register, it was not considered practical to attempt to use software to match the addresses rendered in English and Irish, either in their entirety or in part. These addresses would therefore have been recorded on the LPT Register as separate property addresses. I am advised by the Commissioners that they are not able to quantify the number of cases where a duplicate address on the LPT Register was caused by an Irish and English equivalent of the same address, but I am assured that very few cases were involved.

The Deputy will be aware that in their public communications campaign, the Commissioners sought to forewarn property owners about potential errors in property details recorded on the LPT Register and provided clear guidance on the steps that should be taken by owners in these cases. In addition, the Revenue website advised property owners who received a duplicate LPT Return for their property to contact Revenue in writing, providing details of the duplicate property, in order to ensure that it was removed from the LPT Register and that any LPT charge associated with the duplicate property was cancelled. I am further advised that some individuals who received duplicate LPT Returns have already contacted Revenue and the Register has been updated accordingly. Work is ongoing to refine the Register and this will include the removal of any further duplicate properties that are identified.