Nua Healthcare Services Ltd v Commissioner for Valuation; Redwood Extended Care Facility v Commissioner for Valuation

• Jurisdiction: Ireland
• Judge: Mr. Justice Conleth Bradley
• Judgment Date: 21 March 2025
• Neutral Citation: [2025] IEHC 197
• Docket Number: Record No. 2024/1006SS
• Court: High Court

Nua Healthcare Services Limited

Appellant

and

Commissioner For Valuation

Respondent

Redwood Extended Care Facility

Appellant

and

Commissioner For Valuation

Respondent

[2025] IEHC 197

Record No. 2024/1006SS

Record No. 2024/950SS

AN ARD-CHÚIRT

THE HIGH COURT

Case stated – Statutory interpretation – Valuation Act 2001 Schedule 4, reference number 14(b) – Parties posing questions of law for the opinion of the court – Whether the application of Schedule 4, reference number 14(b) of the Valuation Act 2001 resulted in a nil valuation in respect of the properties

Facts: The respondent, the Commissioner for Valuation, submitted that the actual operation of the respective designated centres by the appellants, Nua Healthcare Services Ltd (Nua) and Redwood Extended Care Facility (Redwood), did not come within the exemption in Schedule 4, reference number 14(b) of the Valuation Act 2001, and therefore the Valuation Tribunal (the Tribunal) made an error of law in determining that they did and in making a nil valuation. The questions of law for the opinion of the High Court posed in the Nua case were as follows: (1) Having regard to the evidence before it, did the Tribunal err in law in determining that the relevant property fell within the ambit of the exemption? (2) The second question did not arise. (3) Did the Tribunal err in law and/or in fact in holding that there was no defrayal by the Health Service Executive of the expenses of the service users in the case and that the appellant was provided with monies from which it defrayed the expenses of carrying out its activities? (4) Did the Tribunal err in law and/or in fact in determining that the expenses incurred by the appellant in carrying out its activities were defrayed wholly or mainly out of moneys provided by the Exchequer? (5) Did the Tribunal err in law in its interpretation and application of Glendale Nursing Home v The Commissioner of Valuation [2012] IEHC 254 to the case? The questions posed in the Redwood case were as follows: (1) Having regard to the evidence before it, did the Tribunal err in law in determining that the relevant property fell within the ambit of paragraph 14(b), Schedule 4 of the 2001 Act? (2) Did the Tribunal err in law in its interpretation of the term “defrayal of expenses”? (3) The third question did not arise.

Held by Bradley J that, having regard to the fact that language, context and purpose were in play with none ever operating to the complete exclusion of the other, he had considered what, in his view, was the correct construction of the language and words used in Schedule 4, reference number (paragraph) 14(b) of the 2001 Act in its immediate and proximate context, having regard inter alia to its relationship with the 2001 Act, the location of the 2001 Act in the legal context in which it was enacted, and the discernible objective of the 2001 Act in providing for (or recasting) the ‘exemptions’ in Schedule 4 of the 2001 Act. In so doing, Bradley J considered that the Tribunal reached the correct determination in its respective determinations in each of the cases, i.e., that the application of Schedule 4, reference number 14(b) of the 2001 Act resulted in a nil valuation in respect of the Nua and Redwood properties.

Bradley J, in ascertaining the plain and ordinary meaning of Schedule 4, reference number 14(b) of the 2001 Act by reference to its language, place, function and context, answered the questions posed in the Nua and Redwood cases in the negative.

Case stated.

Appearances:

(i) Owen Hickey SC and Proinsias Ó'Maolchalain BL appeared for Redwood and Nua in relation to each of their appeals, instructed by Byrne Wallace Shields LLP.

(ii) Patrick Leonard SC and David Dodd BL appeared for the Commissioner for Valuation in both appeals, instructed by the Chief State Solicitor's Office.

JUDGMENT of Mr. Justice Conleth Bradley delivered on the 21 ^st day of March 2025

INTRODUCTION

Preliminary

1 The importance of the law of rating, and specifically, the ‘exemption’ from rating, and the divergence of the apex courts of two common law jurisdictions, was extra-judicially recognised by Mr. Justice Ronan Keane in the first edition of the Law of Local Government in the Republic of Ireland 1 when he observed as follows, at p. 289 of that seminal textbook:

“ The subject of exemption from rating is one of considerable difficulty and obscurity even by the standards of our law of local government. Some of the difficulty springs from the uncertainty which persisted for many years as to the correct statutory basis of exemption from rating. Even to-day, as we shall see, uncertainty persists to the extent that the Supreme Court and the House of Lords have taken wholly divergent views as to what that basis is”.

2 Developments since the first edition of this leading textbook have resolved most of the uncertainty and disputes referred to by Mr. Justice Keane and, of course, the rating system is no longer the principal source of revenue for local authority expenditure (domestic rates were abolished by the Local Government (Financial Provisions) Act 1978 and commercial rates amount to approximately one fifth of annual current spending with the majority of local government funding coming from the Local Government Fund). Much of the uncertainty referred to by Mr. Justice Keane centred on the interpretation of the grounds for exemption from rates in, inter alia, sections 63 and 64 of the Poor Relief (Ireland) Act 1838. Schedule 1 of the Valuation Act 2001 (“the 2001 Act”), providing for the repeal of various enactments, sets out the various statutory provisions which had addressed the valuation process in Ireland from the 19 ^th to the 21 ^st century, resting with the 2001 Act. Sections 63 and 64 of the Poor Relief (Ireland) Act 1838 were repealed by section 8 and Schedule 1 of the 2001 Act which provided a new legislative architecture for rating law in Ireland. Patrick Butler SC in the second edition of Keane on Local Government 2 at p. 347 makes the point that “[a] ny such dispute is now of historical interest in that the statutory basis for exemption is section 15 of the Valuation Act 2001 and [S]chedule 4 thereof”.

3 These proceedings concern those latter provisions and raise a question in relation to the interpretation of Schedule 4 of the 2001 Act which, as just referred to, now provides for an ‘ exemption’ from rates under the sub-heading ‘ Relevant Property Not Rateable.’ (Section 14 and Schedule 3 of the 2001 Act refer to ‘ Relevant Property’ that is rateable).

4 Specifically, the context is whether the exempted provisions in Schedule 4, reference number 3 14(b) of the 2001 Act apply to: (i) a 5-bedroom dormer bungalow in Kiltinan, County Tipperary (between Fethard and Clonmel) which is a ‘ designated centre’ for children with disabilities operated by Nua Healthcare (“Nua”); and (ii) a two-storey detached property located on the outskirts of Stamullen in County Meath which is a ‘ designated centre’ 4 for

adults with disabilities operated by Redwood Extended Care Facility Unlimited Company (“Redwood”)

5 The issue of statutory interpretation common to each of these appeals is quite net. Indeed, ultimately it could be said to come down to the interpretation of the following four words “ out of moneys provided” in Schedule 4, reference number 14(b) of the 2001 Act.

6 The operative provisions in Schedule 4, reference number 14 (a) and (b) of the 2001 Act provide as follows:

“ Any land, building or part of a building occupied for the purpose of caring for elderly, handicapped 5 or disabled persons by a body, being either—

(a) a body which is not established and the affairs of which are not conducted for the purpose of making a private profit from an activity as aforesaid, or

(b) a body the expenses incurred by which in carrying on an activity as aforesaid are defrayed wholly or mainly out of moneys provided by the Exchequer other than a body in relation to which such defrayal occurs by reason of the Nursing Homes Support Scheme Act 2009.”

7 These proceedings, therefore, concern whether the Valuation Tribunal (“the Tribunal”) was correct in determining a nil valuation for the properties operated by Nua and Redwood and whether each comprised “ land, building or part of a building occupied for the purpose of caring for elderly, handicapped or disabled persons by a body the expenses incurred by which in carrying on an activity as aforesaid are defrayed wholly or mainly out of moneys provided by the Exchequer other than a body in relation to which such defrayal occurs by

reason of the Nursing Homes Support Scheme Act 2009.”

8 At the hearing before me, the following core documentation was referred to in Nua's case: the case stated dated 2 ^nd July 2024; the judgment of the Valuation Tribunal dated 6 ^th May 2022; the précis of evidence of Niall Devereux dated 5 ^th May 2021; the précis of evidence of John Algar dated 5 ^th May 2021; the précis of evidence of Seamus Costello dated 5 ^th May 2021; outline legal submissions of the Appellant to the Tribunal dated 5 ^th May 2021; outline legal submissions of the Respondent to the Tribunal dated 5 ^th May 2021; letter from Byrne Wallace to CSSO dated 17 ^th May 2021; email from CSSO to Byrne Wallace dated 18 ^th May 2021; letter from Byrne Wallace to CSSO dated 19 ^th May 2021; outline legal submissions on behalf of the Commissioner for Valuation dated 22 ^nd November 2024; and outline legal submissions on behalf of Nua Healthcare Services Ltd dated 10 ^th January 2025.

9 In relation to Redwood, the following core documents were relied upon: the case stated dated 27 ^th June 2024; the judgment of the Valuation Tribunal dated 27 ^th October 2021; appellant's précis of evidence of John O'Halloran dated 13 ^th January 2020; précis of evidence of Brendan O'Toole dated 10 ^th January 2020; supplemental précis of evidence of John O'Halloran...