Visitor Levy on Paid Overnight Accommodation: Motion Seanad Éireann — 2026-06-24 ============================================================ Victor Boyhan (IND), Agricultural Panel I welcome the Minister. He is always very welcome in the House. It is great to see him here. I will make a few observations in relation to this matter. I thank Senator Mary Fitzpatrick for suggesting this amendment. She has a strong record in local government. I have worked on the joint Oireachtas committee on housing, planning and local government with her. I take her seriously when it comes to local government because she has a track record in local government. I acknowledge that. This proposal is premature for a number of reasons. We are still waiting for the local government task force. I do not want to make decisions on a piecemeal basis when I do not see the whole entity of what this local government task force is. It is on the Minister's desk and has been on the desk of the Minister of State, Deputy Cummins. A report and recommendations are due to come. They are going to the Cabinet. I might be wrong but the Minister might touch on that in his response. There is some suggestion that it is just Americans or well-to-do tourists who come here but every person in rural Ireland, be they from Enniscorthy or County Kildare, who comes to Dublin will be paying this tax regardless of their income. I am not sure about that. I am not sure about the equity of it. I am conscious that there are a number of nominating bodies to the Seanad. I have spoken to the Irish Hotels Federation and to Dublin business interests. The chamber is a great advocate for business in Dublin and to varying degrees there are concerns. The Irish Hotels Federation and the Vintners Federation of Ireland have clearly conveyed to me that they are totally opposed to this legislation. I had expected that voice might be heard here tonight, but clearly not so far. That is interesting because I know they are looking in here tonight. They are fully aware of this proposal and are actively monitoring it, as is their right. We are also talking about collecting a tax when we have local government, particularly in Dublin city, that has been unable to collect the derelict site levy. The Government is now suggesting it will transfer that from a levy to a tax. Why a tax? That is because there is now a great expectation that the Revenue Commissioners will collect it. The Revenue Commissioners seem to be the source of all collection for everything for the Government. That is an issue. There is not a strong track record in local government in terms of the collection of levies or, indeed, taxes. That is an issue. We talk about the offer. What are the benefits here? We know that people are paying local property tax. The marketing around the local property tax when it was first introduced suggested that we would have new swimming pools, new ball alleys, new tennis courts and everything. Places would be clean, with roses going up and down the paths. That did not happen. We are paying a local government tax. People pay central taxes to Revenue. Businesses pay VAT and rates. Employers pay PAYE and meet the cost of employing people. The hotel sector and the hospitality sector are crucial for this city. It is important to remember that we need local government reform. The Minister is ultimately responsible for that. I do not doubt his commitment. At best, we have local government administration. We have the most centralised local government in Europe. The Minister knows that and I know that. As the Cathaoirleach knows from some of the documents that were submitted as part of the Seanad public consultation on local democracy, when we heard from other jurisdictions and experiences, we have the most centralised local government structure in Europe. I have no doubt about that. I am in favour of subsidiarity and of local authorities raising local revenue that is retained locally. I am not in favour of some sort of ring-fenced funds whereby whatever is collected - X millions of euro - comes off your central subvention from central government. I have an issue about that. I want more devolved powers in local government. However, until we see what the Minister is suggesting as part of the local government task force, we do not know what is being proposed. We simply do not know. The Minister may be able to tell us today. If he cannot tell us the content of the report, he might give us a signal here today. I think everyone here has been a county councillor, or most of us have. We have a huge interest in the local government sector. The local authority city and county councillors principally make up a lot of the electorate for Senators. Our fingers are on the pulse and we have an interest. We also live in local communities and in municipalities. We understand how it all operates. I know where the Minister is coming from. I know he is giving his best effort on this. However, I do not believe it is fully teased out. I am not suggesting he said it has been fully teased out. He made the point that it is about empowering local councils to make local decisions. However, it is better to have it right than to have mixed messages. Earlier on, somebody talked about the airport in Kerry. Someone has suggested - no one has suggested it here - that there might be an additional €5 levy on every flight coming to Dublin. What revenue would that give Dublin city? It would certainly be easier to administer than the levy being proposed. However, that is not before us here today. We have to be proactive and tease out more on these issues. The vintners are concerned, employers in Dublin are concerned, and members of the chamber and various representative business bodies in the city are concerned. People from rural Ireland who want to come to the capital city will be paying this tax. Remember what we are doing here. We are putting a tax on everybody, including Oireachtas Members - I have no problem with that - who come to Dublin to stay in accommodation in Buswells Hotel or up the road. Everybody who comes to our city is going to pay this tax. I will finish on this. Let us go back to the kernel of the issue. We will never have true local democracy if we do not have proper, open, transparent and equitable funding for local government. I have spoken to councillors. No one has asked me or attempted to convince me to come here tonight to support this proposal. I do not know how many people actually know about it. It is right to have a debate. I always welcome a debate in relation to local government. I particularly welcome a debate with the Minister, who is ultimately responsible for driving local government. He might share with us something of the progress and the timeframe for the local government task force, which all of our more than 900 councillors would hope to hear about too. --- 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/seanad/2026-06-24/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:55:06+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-06-24