Tax Collection
Dail Éireann — 2025-04-03
============================================================

Séamus McGrath (FF), Cork South-Central

I thank the Minister for that information. I accept 0.6% is a low figure. That suggests the cost to the State would not be significant if there were to be a further reduction in the interest penalty. I acknowledge there was a change in 2021 from 4% to 3%.
One of the flaws with the LPT is it is not based on a household's income; it is based purely on evaluation of the property. We know there will be properties in certain locations with high value but very often those households have a low income. It may be a household reliant on the State pension. It is unfair to charge a penalty of 3% to those households if they opt to defer the property tax based on income threshold grounds or hardship grounds. We should consider a reduction. I note in the changes announced that local authorities will have the option of increasing the property tax by up to 25%. That will allow scope for these households to be exposed to even greater liability. I ask the Minister to consider, in time, looking at the penalty again.

---

Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted.

Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2025-04-03/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:53:41+00:00
Sitting date: 2025-04-03