Noel Grealish (Galway West, Independent)
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361. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government if there are circumstances in which the commercial rates waiver up to the 31 December 2020 can still be availed of when a person is suffering from serious ill health and has to sell their business during 2020; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [36253/20]

Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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In recognising the difficulties faced by businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Programme for Government – “Our Shared Future”, in the area of “Reigniting and Renewing the Economy,” committed to set out how commercial rates will be treated for the remainder of 2020.  One of the earliest priorities of both Minister O’Brien and I was to secure funding to provide a waiver of commercial rates for businesses impacted by the pandemic, while simultaneously supporting local authorities.

€600m was allocated by Government to fund the cost of a six-month waiver of rates from 27 March to 27 September 2020, which took the form of a credit in lieu of rates.  To strengthen this support, in Budget 2021, the Government announced an extension of the waiver until 27 December 2020, at an additional cost of €300m.  The criteria for the extended waiver remains the same and it is intended that the waiver for the additional three months will be automatically applied to rate accounts that benefitted from the six-month waiver.  This brings to €900m the financial support to fund the cost of a waiver of commercial rates, which is an unprecedented measure that offers support to businesses and certainty to local authorities.

The waiver applies to all ratepayers, with a small number of categories excluded (mainly utilities, banks and large supermarkets/corporates).  Almost one hundred and twenty thousand ratepayers have been covered by the commercial rates waiver to date. The reason for the limited number of exclusions is to recognise that there is a small number of ratepayers whose businesses have not been affected by the pandemic, these ratepayers will not be eligible for the automatic waiver.  However, in acknowledgement that some ratepayers in the excluded categories may have closed during the period of the public health restrictions or been otherwise adversely affected, funding is being provided for ratepayers in these categories who can demonstrate that the pandemic has had a significant negative impact on their business.  Any ratepayers negatively impacted as such, have been invited to engage with their own local authorities in relation to their commercial rates on a case by case basis.