Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 5 November 2013
209. Deputy Terence Flanagan asked the Minister for Finance the position regarding uncollected local property tax in respect of a person (details supplied) in Dublin 5; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [46730/13]
View answerI am advised by Revenue that it outlined the sequence of events that led to the Local Property Tax (LPT) payment difficulties in this case when responding to the Deputy’s previous Question on the issue (Question No. 14 on 15 October 2013, 43163/13). Revenue also acknowledged and apologised for the error at that time. In summary, the property in question was not included on Revenue’s Property Register due to conflicting address information held on the various IT systems from which Revenue electronically extracted the data. The issue was manually investigated and the properly was then included on the Register. Unfortunately, during the upload process the person’s payment option did not correctly transfer across to the Register.
Revenue again apologises for the error and also accepts that it was not aware of the issue at the time the Deputy made his original representation. However, as soon as Revenue became aware of the issue, a member of the LPT team made contact with the person concerned, to firstly offer an apology, and to explain the alternative payment options available. A revised payment arrangement was agreed with the person and direct contact details were left with her in case she required any further assistance or clarifications. I am assured that this contact arrangement is still in place should the person or her daughter wish to discuss the issue further.
I note the Deputy’s concern that the issue was only resolved because of his intervention. However, Revenue assures me that the issue would have been identified through the various validation processes and compliance programmes that are in place to ensure the accuracy of the information stored on the Register.
Finally, the Deputy will be aware that Revenue clearly indicated in all of its communications that some errors were inevitable given the scale of the requirement to build a Property Register in such a short period of time. Revenue assures me that this process is for the most part complete and it is anticipated that errors of this nature are unlikely to arise into the future.
