Robert O'Donoghue (Dublin Fingal West, Labour)
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499. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government to confirm that community-based, not-for-profit early years services are exempt from commercial rates; the guidance provided to local authorities to ensure that such community services are treated consistently with regard to rates liability; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [65980/25]

Robert O'Donoghue (Dublin Fingal West, Labour)
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500. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government if he is aware that Tailte Éireann has recently contacted community-based, not-for-profit early years services in Waterford indicating that they may be liable for commercial rates; if he will clarify Government policy regarding the rates status of such community services; if he will engage with Tailte Éireann and local authorities to ensure that community early years providers are not incorrectly deemed rateable and are protected from unwarranted threats of rates liability; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [65981/25]

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 499 and 500 together.

Tailte Éireann is an independent Government agency and provides a property registration system, property valuation service, and national mapping and surveying infrastructure for the State. Tailte Éireann is independent in the exercise of its valuation functions under the Valuation Act 2001, as amended (the Act), and I, as the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, have no function in decisions in this regard.

Tailte Éireann has overall responsibility under the Act, for the maintenance of all Valuation Lists used by local authorities in the calculation of rates liability. Under the Act, all property is rateable unless it falls into one of the exempt categories listed in Schedule 4 of the Act. There is a very specific range of exemptions that can be applied, and Tailte Éireann has no discretionary latitude to grant exemptions not covered by Schedule 4.

Paragraph 22 of Schedule 4 of the Act, which was inserted by the Valuation (Amendment) Act 2015, refers specifically to early childhood care and education facilities and provides an exemption for:

“Any land, building or part of a building used exclusively for the provision of early childhood care and education, and occupied by a body which is not established and the affairs of which are not conducted for the purpose of making a private profit.”

Therefore, while the Act provides that early childhood care and education facilities that are operated on a not-for-profit basis are exempt from rates, it does not provide a general exemption from rates for all childcare or childminding facilities operating on a for profit basis. To avoid ambiguity, if an early childhood care and education facility is operated on a for-profit basis, then they do not fulfil the criteria for exemption under Paragraph 22.

As a matter of course, Tailte Éireann examines all properties on their individual merits by reference to the relevant statutory provisions governing the operation of the Act and case law arising from the independent Valuation Tribunal and the Higher Courts.

There are a number of avenues of redress for an occupier of rateable property who is dissatisfied with a determination of valuation by Tailte Éireann made under the provisions of the Valuation Act 2001, as amended. Firstly, before a determination is made, there is a right to make representations to Tailte Éireann in relation to a proposed valuation. Later in the process, if the occupier is still dissatisfied with the determination, there is a right of appeal to the Valuation Tribunal which is an independent body set up for the purpose of hearing appeals against determinations of Tailte Éireann. There is a right of appeal to the Higher Courts on a point of law.

Under Irish law there is a distinct separation of functions between the valuation of rateable property and the setting and collection of commercial rates. The commercial rates payable on a particular property is a product of the valuation of that property determined by Tailte Éireann multiplied by the “Annual Rate on Valuation” (ARV) which is set annually by the elected members of the local authority as part of its budgetary process. The billing and collection of rates is solely a matter for the relevant local authority. Tailte Éireann has no function in that regard.