Hoteliers to withhold €30m rates

HOTELIERS are to cut their €90 million annual local authority rates bill by €30m in protest against a nine-year delay in revaluing their properties which has cost the industry hundreds of millions of euro.

Irish Hotels Federation (IHF) president Paul Gallagher said the only response that can be given to a “stony silence” from The Valuation Office and local authorities invited to engage with individual hotels in relation to discussing unjustifiable rates is for hotels to now only pay what they can afford.

“We have been put in this position by the Valuation Office which after nine years since the enactment of The Valuation Act 2001, has carried out revisions of rateable valuations in just two of the 88 rateable areas in the country.