Latest Figures Published For Household Charge Payment

Data collected overnight has shown a further 1,319 property owners have paid the €100 household charge since yesterday.

Local Government Management Agency figures show that since the deadline of Mach 31 households have been registering at a rate of over 1,000 a day.

The total figure now stands at 892,520 registrations or payments.

The figure includes 153,000 postal applications that have yet to be processed, 71,000 made to local authority offices, and 14,589 applications for a waiver. A total of 653,931 properties were registered online.

A penalty of €10 plus €1 interested has been in force since the deadline passed.

The figures also show that one landlord has paid the household charge for 190 properties and that by March 28 some 41 landlords, with at least 50 houses each, had paid the charge.

With the rate of payment of the charge at about 50 per cent local authorities are facing an unprecedented gap in funding.

The controversial charge is intended to replace the exchequer element of the Local Government Fund, set up in 1999 as one of the funding sources from central government to local government. In 2011 exchequer funding was €164 million; in 2012 this was to be replaced by the household charge to the tune of €161 million.

However, while local authorities could rely on their allocation of the €164 million, the same will not be true of the household charge.

Last week Minister for the Environment Phil Hogan suggested he would “incentivise” local authorities that “pull out all the stops” to collect the charge by giving them a greater allocation of the money generated. However, no matter what success rate is ultimately achieved, unless 100 per cent of the charge is collected, local authorities will face a gap in their funding.