City Council votes to reduce Property Tax by 15%

Dublin city homeowners will not be facing an increase in their local property tax bills next year, the council has decided.

Dublin City Councillors voted last week to retain the 15 percent cut despite warnings from chief executive Owen Keegan that the local authority is facing a €46 to €50 million hole in its finances.

Keegan has asked councillors to increase the Local Property Tax (LPT) by 30 percent to help pay for the increase in demand for services, inflation, and energy prices.

If approved, it would have meant that nearly 75 percent of Dublin homeowners would have to pay up to €122 more per year, while people with homes worth more than €437,500 would pay more.

Keegan said that while he acknowledges the current extremely high level of inflation, the funds were required for the council to deliver its full range of services.

“The need for additional resources has never been more pertinent in terms of the absolute requirement for additional funding to support services, in contrast to the recognised small but real impact on householders of the change,” he said.

Councillors have the authority to increase or decrease the LPT by 15 percent annually and voted to decrease the tax by the maximum amount ever since it was introduced in 2013.

Traditionally, 80 percent of the collected tax was kept for use by Dublin City Council while 20 percent was reallocated to poorer, rural local authorities.

However, from next year, 100 percent of the collected tax will be retained by DCC.

Fianna Fáil councillor Deirdre Heney said the LPT remained an “unfair tax on Dubliners who have to pay more in property tax than other counties because of where we live”.

“The Fianna Fáil group is not against people paying Property Tax so long as it’s a fair tax, but we will not agree to increase the tax on Dublin householders while it remains an unfair charge on them.”

She said party councillors were “disappointed” by the decision of their party colleague Housing Minister Darragh O’Brien to cut grants to the council by “an equivalent amount as that which is being accrued by the abolition of the LPT equalisation fund”.

Fine Gael, Fianna Fail, Sinn Féin, People Before Profit and Independent councillors voted to retain the 15 per cent cut, while the Green Party, Labour and Social Democrats supported keeping the tax at a higher rate.

Green Party councillor Janet Horner said that Fine Gael Minister of State Peter Burke was in support of increasing the LPT and that it was “reckless” to be entering a city budgetary process with reduced funding.

Labour councillor Dermot Lacey said the Fine Gael position was “quite extraordinary” and that Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil were “playing games” with Dubliners.

Councillors voted by a margin of 38 to 23 to retain the 15 per cent cut.