Hoteliers have said that local authority rates are “tightening the noose” around their industry which is currently in crisis.
Irish Hotels Federation (IHF) members attending their annual conference today in Galway have called on the Government to initiate an emergency provision which permits them to declare inability to pay rates in the current economic environment.
Incoming IHF president Paul Gallagher, general manager of Buswell’s Hotel in Dublin, said that local authorities were “getting away with robbery”, and called for a 30 per cent reduction in rate bills.
He said that over €80 million every year was “squeezed out of the hotel and guesthouse industry in local authority rates” which are set by individual local authorities without recall to any independent evaluation.
“Under the law since 2001, the Valuation Office are supposed to be carrying out a revision of the rateable valuation of every rateable property in the country and, to date, only two local authorities in the entire country have completed this process,” Mr Gallagher said.
“At this rate it will take another 20 years to complete the process, notwithstanding that the legislation envisaged even the revised valuations being further revised after every 5-10 years,” he said.