Clare Daly (Dublin North, United Left)
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26. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government if he will engage with the Department of Finance to seek a resolution to the present situation where homeowners with pyrite are unable to secure a property tax exemption as the Pyrite Remediation Board is not carrying out testing on all properties and for a homeowner to undertake the test would involve expenditure in excess of the exemption. [34322/14]

Paudie Coffey (Waterford, Fine Gael)
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Section 10A of the Finance (Local Property Tax) Act 2012 (as amended) provides for a temporary exemption of at least three consecutive years from the charge to Local Property Tax (LPT) for residential properties that have been certified as having “significant pyritic damage”. To avail of the exemption, the Finance (Local Property Tax) (Pyrite Exemption) Regulations 2013 require that a liable person be in a position to demonstrate ‘significant pyritic damage’ to his/her property, i.e. the property must –

(a) have a Damage Condition Rating of 2 or a Damage Condition Rating of 1 (with progression) established on foot of a Building Condition Assessment carried out by a competent person under and in accordance with I.S. 398-1:2013, and

(b) have sub-floor hardcore material classified, by the appropriate competent person(s), as susceptible to significant or limited expansion, established on foot of testing the sub-floor hardcore material.

Given that a Building Condition Assessment does not involve any invasive internal or external inspection s to a residential property , it cannot be used to state conclusively that reactive pyrite is present in the sub-floor hardcore of the property. It will, however, inform whether sampling and testing of the sub-floor hardcore of the residential property should be undertaken in order to confirm the presence or otherwise of pyrite.

Having regard to the above requirements and, more specifically, to the costs associated with testing, my Department is engaging with the Department of Finance to explore possible alternatives to the requirement for testing.