Councils and the local property tax

Sir, – News from Dún Laoghaire Rathdown (DLR) that its local property tax (LPT) was unchanged from its usual 15 per cent reduction might not have surprised, but your article misses a key element of the debate (“Dublin councils vote differently on LPT rates”, News, October 10th).

Revenue data shows that over 10 per cent of all residential properties (8,500) in DLR are valued at over a million euro. Recognising the cost-of-living implications of reverting to the base LPT rate, a 0 per cent local adjustment was proposed to be applied in tandem with a pilot residential support grant scheme. This was intended to provide financial support equivalent to the lost 15 per cent, targeted at LPT payers whose properties were valued at up to €700,000, with eligibility criteria excluding those who own more than one property and whose earnings exceed the average industrial wage. Effectively, for DLR, this would have covered 72 per cent of properties, and within that, exclude the top 22 per cent income earners.

Targeting the equivalent of this 15 per cent LPT tax cut, instead of applying it universally, was going to result in over €8 million additional income to DLR.

Disappointingly, this proposal was not supported by Fine Gael or Fianna Fáil Councillors, and was defeated. Next month, councillors will have to look at alternative sources of income and/or look at cutbacks in services. – Yours, etc,