Barry Cowen (Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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421. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government if his Department has undertaken an analysis of the costs of operating the commercial rates system; the estimated cost of centralising the system; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [13142/17]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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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 pursuant to the Valuation Acts 2001 to 2015. The levying and collection of rates are matters for each individual local authority, as are the costs of collection.

The Debt Management Project Implementation Board, on which my Department was represented, was established by the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform in February 2015, to progress the recommendations of the Debt Management Review, which was published in 2014. The Project Implementation Board concluded its work in 2016 and recommended that a Central Collection Agency was not justified at this time. This was due to the fact that the improvements which had been made by the Public Sector Bodies (PSBs) and the targets set for those PSBs for the period to 2018 were close to those that might be expected of a Central Collection Agency.

As part of this process, the local authority Sector prepared a business case for stronger enforcement powers in the collection of commercial rates. This business case was endorsed by the Project Board. I will be bringing legislative proposals to Government shortly in this regard.