Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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210. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government the increases in commercial rates that each county and city council has imposed in each area in 2016 and 2017; his views on the impact they are having on small and medium sized businesses; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [15042/17]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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The levying and collection of rates are matters for each individual local authority.  The annual rate on valuation (ARV), which is applied to the valuation for each property, determined by the Valuation Office, to obtain the amount payable in rates, is decided by the elected members of each local authority in the annual budget and its determination is a reserved function.

The Annual Rates on Valuation in 2015, 2016 and 2017 and the percentage increases or decreases by local authority between 2015 and 2016 and 2016 and 2017 are set out in the following table.

My Department has in recent years, in its annual circular to local authorities on budget meetings, requested local authorities to exercise restraint in setting ARVs. Local authorities have kept increases to the ARV to a minimum and the majority have not increased their ARV. The amalgamation of local authorities under the Local Government Reform Act 2014 has also seen both increases and decreases for some ratepayers in some former rating authority areas due to the harmonisation of ARVs under section 29 of the Act.