by Kathy Masterson
LIMERICK City and County Council is to send a cross-party deputation to meet with Finance Minister Michael Noonan and Environment Minister Alan Kelly to discuss the revaluation of commercial rates in Limerick.
Some businesses have reported rate increases of up to 400 per cent, and council members have expressed fears that the hikes could sound the death knell for many small rural businesses.
Fine Gael councillor Jerome Scanlan, who submitted the motion to discuss the valuation process, told the Limerick Post: “We need to take account of the fact that there are small businesses in rural Limerick, and in the city, that will close if their rates increase. I am of the view that nobody can sustain a rate increase of more than 20 per cent, but there are some businesses that are looking at increases of up to 400 per cent.”
The rate valuations are calculated depending on the location of a business and its rentable value multiplied by the annual rate on valuation (ARV) set by the local authority, which is based on the revenue it needs to raise for the year.
Pat Conroy of the Valuation Office this week told a special meeting of the council that the system would create both “winners and losers”, adding that there were “55 per cent winners, 45 per cent losers”.
He also explained that the valuations were “revenue neutral” and warned: “For every euro taken off somebody’s bill, someone else’s bill will go up.”
Newcastle West councillor John Sheahan said that rural businesses “don’t have the footfall” to justify major increases in rates.
“There are some rural areas that if you pass through them at two in the afternoon you could think you were in Spain, you would think they were having a siesta or something,” he remarked.
Council Cathaoirleach Kevin Sheahan noted that it was an “extraordinary morning” that all members of the council were “singing off the same hymn sheet”.
He concluded: “We are a county of small towns and villages. So many villages are down to one shop, usually a filling station. These people are now going to be wiped out completely. What are the consequences of that happening in a village? It’s the end of that village. That community is dead and gone if it doesn’t at least have a shop.
“If this system of increasing rates doesn’t take profits into account, it’s a grave error if that is allowed to proceed”, he said.
