Farrell raises concern over criteria used to identify ‘unfinished estates’

Fine Gael TD for Dublin Fingal Alan Farrell has questioned the classification of ‘unfinished estates’ that will be exempt from the Local Property Tax. The list of exempted estates was compiled in 2012 on a nationally agreed set of criteria.

“I am disappointed that the classification of ‘unfinished estates’ for the Local Property Tax exemption is so narrow that it excludes estates in Fingal.

“The new categorisation was due to be a more up to date means of identifying estates that should be exempt, compared to the list used for the Household Charge which was out of date and somewhat inconsistent, for example, exempting some estates that were in better condition than others.   This was because the 2010 survey had not been carried out for this specific purpose. However the 2012 survey was due to eliminate these problems.

“I accept that a lot of progress has been made on tackling unfinished housing developments throughout the country following the allocation of €5 million in 2012 however, I have no choice but to question this recent survey that does not classify one estate in Fingal as unfinished.

“This is despite some of our large new estates for example in Swords, such as Waterside, Drynam Avenue and Russell’s Terrace that have been waiting for the completion of their estates with no progress made for several years. Large parts of the Golden Ridge Estate in Rush are unfinished as well as The Links estate which is currently overlooking a derelict building site.

“I find it difficult to understand how not one estate in Fingal, despite it having one of the largest number of new estates in 2004 €“ 2008 and has been so badly affected by the building issues such as pyrite would not be categorised as incomplete.

“Some questions must be answered within the Department of the Environment on this very serious issue for many homeowners across the North County.”