Employers' group IBEC has urged the Taoiseach to address the "seriously flawed" system of development levies. It says the system of local charges is inequitable and will hit competitiveness.
IBEC's director of enterprise, Mr Brendan Butler, says the wide divergence in charges around the State could skew industrial development and create regional imbalances.
While much of the attention to date has been on the proposals by local authorities to lay down a system of levies for residential development, Mr Butler says the scenario facing non-residential development is "similarly bleak". "A 10,000 square metre industrial development is being levied €1 million under proposals from Fingal County Council, €750,000 by South Tipperary County Council and €155,250 by Sligo County Council," he notes.
He says this cost will be borne by end-users at a time of "increased competition from other countries for foreign direct investment".
"Following increases in energy costs, local authority rates, regulatory compliance costs, insurance etc, this presents a further cost burden to industry and will be an additional blow to national competitiveness," Mr Butler says.
According to IBEC's recently-published national business costs survey, local authority rates rose by an average of 13.1 per cent in 2002 and were expected to climb another 12.8 per cent this year. Charges for water, waste and sewage disposal were 24 per cent higher last year and projected to increase by 18.6 per cent this year.
Mr Butler says IBEC made it clear during negotiations on the current national agreement, Sustaining Progress, that it would not support increased local charges, particularly if they were being used to replace central Exchequer funding.
It has also questioned whether the money raised will go to provide the facilities for which they are supposedly ring-fenced by legislation. "It seems difficult to accept that Fingal County Council, which earned approximately €12 million per annum from the levy that applied under the Planning and Development Act 1963 anticipates earnings of €52 million a year under the new legislation,"says Mr Butler.
He has written to the Taoiseach and the Minister for the Environment, Mr Cullen, calling for greater consistency between schemes, to allow planning authorities some discretion on its implementation and to introduce an appeals process.
