Irish hoteliers want the next government — no matter which party is involved — to reduce local government levies that they say is crimping hard-won euro earnings from tourism.

Businesses in Kerry which can afford to pay their rates but are not doing so will be made pay up in 2014, county manager Tom Curran warned yesterday.

The conditions under which local councils have written off more than €500m worth of commercial rates are not consistent and the Government should create a rational commercial rates system in which just one Department is responsible, according to Fine Gael TD John Deasy.

Members of the Dáil’s public spending watchdog have expressed concern that a programme to revise the value of all commercial properties across the country will drive many struggling retailers out of business.

After 15 years in business, a Cork cheesemaker is shutting up shop as he refuses to pay a €12,000 backlog in rates to the council.

THE origins of rating assessment on property dates back to 1826 when Griffiths Primary Valuation Act was passed, allowing for a uniform valuation of all property throughout Ireland and the introduction of payment of rates stems from the Valuation Act (Ireland) 1854.

The Cork Business Association is joining forces with other business groups to press the Government into reforming the commercial rates system.

One of the most bitter, personalised and expensive corporate fiascoes in Irish sport will be picked apart in an Oireachtas hearing today.

FORTY decentralisation projects are being scrapped under the plan, meaning communities from Arklow to Youghal will miss out.

WITH an asset base worth €2.6 billion, 17 religious orders have been asked by the state to find up to €350 million in cash or property as an additional contribution to the redress deal.

AT its height, the Catholic Church in Ireland owned or occupied more than 10,700 properties across the country and controlled nearly 6,700 religious and educational sites.

A PROGRAMME to revise the value of all commercial properties for the calculation of local authority rates is unlikely to meet its completion deadline of 2018 despite work starting on the project six years ago.

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.

Local authority rates imposed on hotels and guesthouses are "crippling" the industry, the newly elected President of the Irish Hotels Federation, Paul Gallagher told delegates at its AGM today.

HOMEOWNERS facing a property tax announced in this week’s budget could face a second “valuation” charge through the building of a national database on homes.

THE Government should take at least a 50% discount on the €90bn of property loans it plans to buy from the banks, the Labour Party has said.

AN ORDER for compensation to be paid to a woman injured while she was sitting in the back of a van has been referred to the Supreme Court.

The Irish Auctioneers & Valuers Institute (IAVI) has reached agreement with the National Consumer Agency to refrain from publishing any sale figures other than the exact sale price achieved for any property.

THE consumer watchdog yesterday gave estate agents 48 hours to agree to publish only accurate prices for homes they have sold or face prosecution.

THE Health Service Executive will be in the High Court today in a fight for special rates-free status on its property — a potentially lucrative precedent for hundreds of publicly owned sites.

CORK County Council has failed in its bid to dodge a €380,000 rates bill from its neighbour, the city council, after an argument questioning the essence of the Irish State.

A GAA club could run its finances better than a Government agency, the Dáil’s public spending watchdog heard yesterday.

Preliminary figures for January to March 2004 indicate that the average price paid per hectare (ha) of agricultural land was €14,665 (€5,935 per acre).

Preliminary figures for October-December 2003 indicate that the average price paid per hectare (ha) of agricultural land was €14,144 (€5,724 per acre) in the last quarter of 2003, subject to revision.

Preliminary figures for July-September 2003 indicate that the average price paid per hectare (ha) of agricultural land was €14,442 (€5,844 per acre), according to the latest study by the Central Statistics Office (CSO).