I want to direct the attention of the Minister to the activities of the Valuation Office over the last 12 months particularly. It will be recalled that, some years ago, the question of a general revaluation in this country was contemplated. But that question had to be abandoned because it was regarded then as political dynamite. I am going to submit to the House that, in recent years, the Commissioners of Valuation have, in effect, being trying to bring about what this House has certainly not given legislative sanction to. A study of the Dáil Order Paper over the last three months gives one an indication that the activities of the Commissioners of Valuation are causing widespread hardship. I know a property in this city where houses of identical character show an increase over the last couple of years of 20 per cent. in valuation. These houses are occupied by artisans and by clerical workers, individuals who, obviously, are not in a position to be burdened with extra taxation in this form. May I say that the grievance which I complain of is heightened by the fact that electricity charges are anchored, in very many cases, to the valuation of a house. I want to know if the Minister is in a position to indicate to the House why it is that property of an identical character in one area has shown a variation within the last two or three years, or within the last four or five years, as high as 20 per cent. On what grounds can that variation be justified? I submit to the Minister that the results of the activities of the Commissioners of Valuation are certainly inequitable.
The extraordinary thing about it, and this seems parodoxical, is that the commissioners can justify their attitude because of the basis of valuation generally. The main consideration in valuations is the letting value of property. It is true that the letting value of property at the present time is at an enhanced figures. In fact if the commissioners were to give effect to the law as it now stands you could have fantastic and prohibitive valuations. In effect, what the Commissioners of Valuation are saying is that, while at the present time the letting value of a house is say, £100, they could, instead of putting the figure at £30, make it as high as £70 or £80. The anomalous position we have at the present time is that the Valuation Commissioners are acting within the law by making these heavy increases in valuation. I suggest that there is something here which, because of its widespread character and of the undoubted hardship which it is inflicting, calls for a remedy, and for the personal intervention of the Minister himself.
There is another aspect of it which concerns local housing authorities. We all know that the valuations enter very largely into the fixation of rents. Here again the operations of the Valuation Commissioners are having very serious effects so far as local authorities are concerned. I noticed that, in reply to the parliamentary questions which were addressed to him on this subject over the past few months, it was possible for the Minister and quite justifiably to say that these increases in valuation had, in fact, been initiated by the local authorities. So far as the questions that were addressed to the Minister were concerned, that was so, but I have been in touch with a particular phase of valuations which is outside that category altogether, and that is in regard to the building of new houses. The only liaison there is between the local authority and the Valuation Office in these cases is that a notification is sent to the Valuation Office that the building of a house is completed, and thereafter, the valuation put on it is within the absolute control of the Commissioners of Valuation. The local authority does not come into it as such. Therefore, the steep increase of from 20 to 25 per cent. in valuation that has taken place in recent years in the case of houses newly-built is not due to the initiation of the local authority, but to direct action by the Valuation Commissioners themselves.
I want to say again that, in my opinion, the system that is in operation at the present time is inequitable. The answer to that may be, why not raise existing valuations and bring them all to the same level. I certainly am not advocating that, nor do I think any member of the House would advocate any such thing. I would say that the valuations in, say, Dublin 20 years ago were reasonable, but as I have pointed out they have been moving up steadily from that position in recent years, until at the present time they have reached a stage where, in my opinion, the intervention of the Minister is called for.
