Fee-paying schools in the Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown area have been exempted from local authority development levies following a vote by local councillors.
Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council had proposed imposing a charge of €50 per square metre on new developments at fee-paying schools, but on Wednesday night this was rejected by councillors following a Fianna Fáil motion. Mr Victor Boyhan, a PD member of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown council, who first raised the issue, said parents of the children in these schools often contributed financially to new developments and adding this extra charge would be unfair. The decision means all schools, both fee- and non-fee- paying in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown, are exempt from the levies, although developments at third-level institutions will still incur charges.
UCD and Dún Laoghaire Institute of Art and Design are among the colleges in the Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown local authority area. The issue arose when Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown sought to get approval for its own levy scheme from the councillors.
If the charges had gone ahead any developer building a new structure at a fee-paying school would have incurred a €50 per square metre charge.
This would have significantly increased the cost of the project to the builder and ultimately to the school.
The levies collected will be used by Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown to fund roads, drainage, parks and community centres. Under the Planning and Development Act 2000 a new system of fixed levies will replace the existing ad hoc system of levies. The Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown area contains some of Dublin's best known fee-paying schools, including Blackrock College, Loreto Dalkey, Holy Child Killiney, Wesley College, St Andrew's Booterstown and Mount Anville in Goatstown.
In a presentation this week senior officials from Dún Laoghaire argued that fee-paying schools were different to schools only receiving State funding.
The officials argued that fee-paying schools should incur a levy regardless of the school's tax status.