Sir, – In his letter of December 8th, Sean Burke makes the point that local property tax (LPT) is raised to pay for local services. Such services currently include public parks, libraries, open spaces and leisure amenities, planning and development, fire and emergency services, the maintenance and cleaning of streets and street lighting.
As this is the case, should the amount of LPT depend on the level of these services received in communities rather than any other criteria? Put simply, you assess the LPT due on a property, you divide it into tranches based on the services mentioned above and then you pay for the number of “services” you can actually receive.
Because, of the categories mentioned above, I can confirm that here in rural county Galway, and in the rest of rural Ireland, we can count on fire and emergency services – some of which we have to further pay for if we actually use – but little else.
Occasionally the hedges get cut and some awkward junctions may have a light over them, but few or none of the other services are available to us.
I don’t see how it is equitable to charge everyone “equally” but not to supply services “equally” to all those being charged. – Yours, etc,
STEVEN LONG,
Kinvara,
Co Galway.