Maurice Quinlivan (Limerick City, Sinn Fein)
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114. To ask the Minister for Justice and Equality the number of properties in Limerick city and county council area on 15 November 2016 that remain unvalued in view of the fact they have not been valued by the Valuation Office. [35894/16]

Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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I can inform the Deputy that the Commissioner of Valuation is independent in the exercise of his duties under the Valuation Acts 2001- 2015 and the making of valuations for rating purposes is his sole responsibility. I, as Minister for Justice and Equality, have no function in decisions in this regard. Under the valuation legislation, the Commissioner has overall responsibility for the maintenance of valuation lists of all commercial properties in the State which are used by Local Authorities in the calculation of rates due from individual ratepayers. This is done by using two statutory valuation processes known as "revaluation" and "revision".

Firstly, revaluation is a process where all rateable properties in a Local Authority area are valued periodically by reference to a single valuation date. After the first revaluation of a Local Authority area is completed, revaluation is then scheduled to take place every five to ten years to reflect changes in economic circumstances since the last revaluation took place. Revision, on the other hand, is intended to reflect structural changes to individual properties or the addition to the valuation lists of new properties between revaluations. It is accepted that the valuation element of the rating system should have both a comprehensive revaluation and revision programme running in tandem.

The national revaluation programme currently underway is the first general revaluation of all commercial property in the state since the middle of the 19th century and has priority status in the work of the Valuation Office. It is a very significant undertaking and involves the valuation of some 146,000 commercial rateable properties. Completing the first revaluation and getting properties in every Local Authority area onto the 5-10 year cycle of revaluations provided for in the legislation represents a sea-change for the valuation system. As part of the national revaluation programme, the revaluation of all commercial properties in the Limerick City and County rating authority area was completed in December 2014 when certificates of valuation were issued to over 6,700 commercial and industrial ratepayers. The new valuations took effect from 1 January 2015 and have formed the basis for commercial rates since then.

While the revaluation work has been underway, the Valuation Office has continued to carry out revision work and, during 2015, some 5,438 applications for revision were processed nationwide. Also, any backlog of revision work is cleared during the revaluation of a local authority area. As already mentioned, revision of valuation is the process by which the valuation lists are maintained between revaluations and reflects changes to property of a structural nature and the addition to the valuation lists of new properties.

The number of applications for revision of valuation in respect of the Limerick City and County rating authority area which are currently on hands and awaiting assignment to valuers in the Valuation Office is 198, of which 105 have been received within the last 6-month period. In addition, there are 35 cases currently being actively processed to completion. I am informed that all of the Limerick revision applications awaiting assignment to valuers relate to properties already on the valuation list and consist of properties that have been demolished, sub-divided, amalgamated or extended and would also include some applications for removal on the basis of exemption from rates. I am also informed that none of the applications awaiting assignment relate to newly built properties.

It has been a priority for the Valuation Office to enter into collaborative arrangements with all Local Authorities including the Limerick City and County Council, to ensure that an efficient and effective revision programme can be conducted on an ongoing basis. To this effect, the Commissioner has implemented a number of initiatives to enhance the capacity of the Valuation Office to deliver a high-quality and timely revision service. To that end, several improvements have already been put in place in recent times. For example, the Office has recently carried out a revision pilot project involving four local authorities which was designed to improve data exchange with local authorities in general. Following the conclusion of the pilot project, this approach is now being rolled out to all local authorities and online services have been enhanced to facilitate more effective data exchanges between those bodies and the Valuation Office.

The Valuation Office recently commissioned a review of its revaluation and revision processes. That review made a number of recommendations in line with best international practice based on methodologies and processes for handling statutory valuation work in other jurisdictions. These recommendations will now form the basis of an implementation plan being put in place by the Valuation Office. The review also proposed establishing a separate, permanently resourced, Revision Unit responsible for the processing of revision work and the ongoing assessment of properties falling under this category. Following the receipt of a business case by the Valuation Office seeking the provision of additional funding to allow for the establishment of a dedicated resource to deal specifically with the ongoing revision programme, I was pleased to be in a position to announce as part of the recent budgetary provisions, the allocation of an additional €750,000 to the Valuation Office during 2017 for this purpose. This development, which will involve the appointment of a number of additional staff, in tandem with the rollout of improved online facilities and enhanced processes and procedures, is specifically intended to address backlogs in conducting revision assessments and to enable the Valuation Office to provide timely and high quality revision services to all Local Authorities including Limerick City and County Council and to ratepayers into the future.