*The impact to towns and villages will be “seriously damaging”, local elected representatives have cautioned.
SOME CLARE BUSINESSES face “sky high” bills with work underway on a rates revaluation.
New valuations are to be published in October 2023 and come into effective from 2024.
At the beginning of September, the Commissioner of Valuation, with the consent of the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage Darragh O’Brien (FF) revoked existing Valuation Orders for the revaluation of commercial and industrial properties in Clare, Donegal, Dún Laoghaire Rathdown, Galway, Kerry and Mayo County Council and Galway City County rating authority areas.
Revaluation 2023 is a national programme aimed at ensuring that the rateable valuation of all commercial and industrial property in Ireland reflects the current business environment. After revaluation there will be a closer relationship between the annual rental values of commercial properties and their commercial rates liability.
Mixed properties of domestic and commercial use will only be assessed on the commercial element of the property. Neither residential property nor agricultural lands are rateable and consequently are not affected by revaluation.
In a proposal before Clare County Council, Cllr Pat Daly (FF), Cllr Pat McMahon (FF), Cllr John Crowe (FG), Cllr Shane Talty (FF) and Cllr Joe Killeen (FF) asked the Government “to take steps to ease the burden on rate payers in County Clare arising from the extraordinary high valuation of properties recently introduced by the Valuation Office”.
Business in the county “is very difficult” presently, Cllr Daly acknowledged. Bills have “gone sky high” since the recent revision of rates, the Ennis representative flagged. He outlined that one furniture shop’s rates bill will go from €8,000 to €24,000 while the increase will jump from €16,000 to €19,000 for a doctor’s surgery. “We’re asking Clare County Council to write to the Minister to freeze the revaluation for two years otherwise businesses will go under”.
Nobody in the Council’s management want people to go out of business, Cllr McMahon maintained. “Where jobs could be threatened no one I know wants a situation where a shopkeeper would have to leave staff go because of a huge increase in their rates. We all know the times we’re in and the times threatened for the next year”.
“Businesses have their backs to the wall, it is a very difficult time for trading, we have to secure essential services,” Cllr Crowe added.
There has been “huge unease and concern around” the revaluation process, Cllr Talty stated. “I have a suspicion there will be huge savings to FDI and State companies, their rates will come down and the small savings will be experienced by them but not the small businesses”. The fee for the post office in Ennistymon will go from €800 to €4,000 per annum, he outlined. Talty warned, “the impact will be seriously damaging to our towns and villages” and it was then pointed out by Cllr Killeen that the shops, pubs and restaurants in these areas were already “under huge pressure”.
For Cllr Pat Hayes (FF), “the challenge is the mixed messaging and the evaluation process people giving forty days notice”. He continued, “I think the wrong people have been targeted, I think we have been sold a pup by the evaluation office coming to Clare. A lot of small businesses have had large increase”.
A return visit of the revaluation officer to Clare is warranted, Cllr Joe Cooney (FG) believed, “there is great concern out there as regards small business and jobs, if this is the rates then businesses won’t be able to sustain it”.
Conflicting stories have been relayed at different workshops relating to rates, Cllr Michael Begley (IND) remarked, “There seems to be a lot of misinformation or misunderstanding of misinformation”.
“Businesses are trying to claw back what they lost during COVID. We should be supporting local businesses but we can’t do that if we’re losing jobs,” Cllr Donna McGettigan (SF) stressed.
Mayor of Clare, Cllr Tony O’Brien (FF) told his colleagues that the Chief Executive of the Council assured him they would be writing to the revaluation officer.
