Seán Haughey (Dublin Bay North, Fianna Fail)
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2242. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government the aims and objectives of the local property tax; if local services have improved since the introduction of this tax; if County Dublin receives its fair share of proceeds from this tax; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [28472/17]

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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Local Property Tax (LPT) was introduced to provide an alternative, stable and sustainable funding base for the local authority sector, providing greater levels of connection between local revenue raising and associated expenditure decisions and making the taxation system less dependent on other taxes.

It is a positive outcome from the policy of local retention of LPT that local authorities use LPT proceeds to pay for local services which were funded by Central Government in the past; this supports the overall objective of the local government reform programme, which is greater devolution to the local government sector, through supporting enhanced local decision making on spending priorities.

Local retention of LPT began in 2015. LPT allocations to every local authority were made in accordance with the Government’s decision that 80% of the estimated LPT liability in each local authority area for a given year is retained in that area, notwithstanding any local variation decisions. The remaining 20% of LPT is re-distributed to provide equalisation funding to those local authorities that have lower property tax bases, due to the variance in property values and density across the State. This principle applies to every local authority.

The elected members of each of the four Dublin local authorities have taken decisions over the past three years to vary the LPT rate downwards by the maximum 15%. The full cost of that reduction is reflected accordingly in reduced LPT allocations to those local authorities.