Green Party unhappy with cut in property tax and prospect of underfunding in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown

Last night, Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council voted to cut Local Property Tax by 15%.

Frank Curran, Chief Executive of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown, had strongly encouraged councillors to vote for the base rate on the basis that increased cost base and inflation would leave the council with a projected deficit.

Green Party Councillor Oisín O’Connor described the decision to cut the budget as ‘wholly wrong.’

“Local Property Tax has remained more or less stable for residential property owners since it was introduced in 2013,” he said.

“During that time, private landlords have doubled the average rent in Dublin and Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown has the highest average rents in Ireland.

“There are over 20,000 renting households in DLR including almost 5,000 households renting council housing.”

“It’s wholly wrong for a local authority to cut the budget that is available for services and maintenance of our county’s infrastructure in order to provide a tax cut that overwhelmingly benefits the wealthy who own larger homes.

“1 in 5 property owners will save less than a euro a week with this cut whole 3 in 5 will save less than 2 euro.

“Meanwhile an institutional landlord with 1,000 average value homes will save €100,000 this year thanks to the tax cut voted last night.”