Willie Penrose (Longford-Westmeath, Labour)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

259. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government if she will consider reform of the rateable valuation system, with a view to modernising same, so as to ensure that any referred system provides for appropriate valuations rates reductions and abatements, particularly where new businesses are starting up, and where same are located in rural areas; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [14534/16]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

Local authorities are under a statutory obligation to levy rates on any property used for commercial purposes in accordance with the details entered in the valuation lists prepared by the independent Commissioner of Valuation under the Valuation Act 2001. The Commissioner for Valuation has sole responsibility for all valuation matters.  The levying and collection of rates are matters for each individual local authority.

It is important to acknowledge that commercial rates, as a local tax, and the rating system generally are deeply embedded in the local government system.  A large body of case law is well established and local authorities and ratepayers are, in the main, very familiar with, and generally accepting of, the operation and practice of the rating system. Rates are also a stable source of financing for local government which is not affected unduly by short-term changes in economic circumstances.

Under the provisions of the Local Government (Rates) Act 1970, a rating authority may make and carry out a scheme, providing for the waiver by the authority of all or a portion of commercial rates due by ratepayers in respect of a specified class or classes of property. The making of such a scheme is subject to my consent as Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government. No rate waiver schemes have been consented to in respect of commercial property.

I am aware of the continued need to restrain costs on businesses. My Department has in recent years requested local authorities to exercise restraint in setting, and where possible to reduce, ARVs and they have responded positively in this regard. The national average ARV decreased each year from 2010 to 2014; 2015 and 2016 are not directly comparable with previous years due to local authority mergers and the necessity to harmonise rates across new local authority areas.