Personal Injuries Assessment Board v Commissioner of Valuation
| Jurisdiction | Ireland |
| Judge | Mr. Justice McCarthy |
| Judgment Date | 15 July 2008 |
| Neutral Citation | [2008] JILL-HC 071501 |
| Judgment citation (vLex) | [2008] 7 JIC 1501 |
| Court | High Court |
| Date | 15 July 2008 |
[2008] JILL-HC 071501
THE HIGH COURT
AND
VALUATION ACT 2001 S39
VALUATION ACT 2001 S15(1)
VALUATION ACT 2001 S16
VALUATION ACT 2001 S59
VALUATION ACT 2001 S15(2)
VALUATION ACT 2001 SCHED 4
VALUATION ACT 2001 S15(3)
GLOVER v BLN LTD & ORS 1973 IR 388
HEARTLEY & ORS v BANKS 141 ER 16 1858 5 CB NS 40
SHORTER OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY 3ED 1972
MINISTERS & SECRETARIES ACT 1924
INSPECTOR OF TAXES v KIERNAN 1981 IR 117 1982 ILRM 13 1981/10/1728
POOR RELIEF (IRL) ACT 1838 S63
PERSONAL INJURIES ASSESSMENT BOARD ACT 2003 S54
PERSONAL INJURIES ASSESSMENT BOARD ACT 2003 S54(1)(A)
PERSONAL INJURIES ASSESSMENT BOARD ACT 2003 S55(1)
PERSONAL INJURIES ASSESSMENT BOARD ACT 2003 S20(4)
PERSONAL INJURIES ASSESSMENT BOARD ACT 2003 S78
O CULACHAIN (INSPECTOR OF TAXES) v MCMULLAN BROS LTD 1995 2 IR 217 1995 2 ILRM 498 1995/10/2953
SLATTERY v FLYNN 2003 1 ILRM 450 2002/26/6727
LOCAL GOVT (FINANCIAL PROVISIONS) ACT 1978
REVENUE CMRS v DOORLEY & MCDERMOTT 1933 IR 750
O'CONNELL (INSPECTOR OF TAXES) v FYFFES BANANA PROCESSING LTD 2000 ITR 235 2000/14/5389
JUDGMENT of Mr. Justice McCarthy delivered the 15TH day of JULY 2008.
1. This is a case stated by the Valuation Tribunal pursuant to the provisions of s. 39 of the Valuation Act, 2001, at the request of the respondent who expressed dissatisfaction to the Tribunal ("the Tribunal") with its determination of the appellant's appeal to it on 25th January, 2006, in accordance with the provisions of s. 39 of the Valuation Act, 2001, ("the Act").
2. Pursuant to the provisions of s. 15(1) of the Act, what is described as "relevant property" is rateable, subject to ss. 16 and 59 (which deal with times during which rateability arises with mines, rights to drill, and apartments). Pursuant to the provisions of s. 15(2) ("relevant property"), however, mines referred to in the Fourth Schedule to the Act are not rateable and, further, by s. 15(3), (subject to s. 16):-
"Relevant to property, being a building or part of a building, land or a waterway or a harbour directly occupied by the State (including any land or building occupied by any Department or office of State, the Defence Forces or the Garda Síochána are used as a prison or place of detention) shall not be rateable."
"Relevant property" is construed in accordance with the Third Schedule to the Act and I need not dwell on that aspect further as an office (being the subject property in the present case) falls within that definition.
3. It will be seen from the foregoing, accordingly, that as an exception to the general rule as to rateability inter alia, a building directly occupied by the State is not rateable and that phrase includes property "occupied by any Department or office of State". The issue which was before the Tribunal, and is now before me, is whether or not the Personal Injuries Assessment Board ("the Board") office property at Tallaght, County Dublin, falls within this category: s. 16 and 59 and the Fourth Schedule to the Act have no direct relevance.
5. So much for the general provision as to rateability one must now turn to consideration of s. 15(3) and, in particular, the meaning of "office of State".
6. I agree with the proposition that the term "office of State" is to be given its ordinary and natural meaning. In this respect reference has been made by the Board to the judgment of Kenny J. in Glover v. B.L.N. Limited [1973] I.R. 388, at 414 as to the characteristics of an office and, further, to the judgment of Cockburn C.J., in Heartley v. Banks [1858] 5 CB (NS) 40 at 55, as to the nature of an office but is plain that the type of office to which reference is made in those cases is that appertaining to an office holder. I think that a worthwhile starting point to ascertain the ordinary and natural meaning of a word is the definition to be found in an appropriate dictionary and I have referred to the definition of "office" in the Shorter Oxford English dictionary (3 rd Edition) (1973). Without, I hope, wrongly omitting to refer to various meanings given therein to the word or words, (which I consider irrelevant) the definitions include -
"A place for the transaction of business; often including the staff, or denominating their Department. Applied to the room or Department in which the clerical work is done…"
And
"Sometimes transferred from the place of business to the company etc., there established, as in Assurance or Insurance Office, (cf. the Post Office)"
and also
"…the quarters of a government Department, as the colonial, home office etc,; the staff engaged in carrying on the business of the Department."
In the latter context the dictionary makes the point that the word is used with a capital O.
7. It seems to me that we are not, here, dealing with an office of State in the sense merely of a place but rather one including staff engaged in carrying out the business of such Department or denominating it. An office appears to be both place and persons, with, I would have thought, all the paraphernalia of an entity carrying on government or other business (i.e. not merely a place of business but also a budget, defined area of responsibility, an administrative structure and a clear identity or name).
8. I do not think that the usage in England, whereby, say, the Home Department is commonly known as the Home office is relevant here having regard to the use of the lower case o and the fact that we have here no practice of using the word office as a synonym for Department. A Department of State is an entity known to the law since the Ministers and Secretaries Act 1924, whereby the business of government was distributed amongst the several Departments thereby established (the number of which has since been increased). A relevant Minister was constituted as Head of each Department and he is a corporation sole. No one could doubt the rationality of the proposition that a Department, to which part of the business of central government, either as explicitly referred to in the Constitution or otherwise, is given could not but occupy property on behalf of the State and, further, that such occupation would constitute direct occupation.
9. It is axiomatic in statutory interpretation that every phrase or word must be considered in context: in this context I am referred to Inspector of Taxes v. Kiernan, [1981] I.R. 117 (per Henchy J.) that:-
"A word or expression in a given statute mist be given meaning and scope according to its immediate contexts, in line with the scheme and purpose of the particular statutory pattern as a whole and to an extent that will truly effectuate the particular legislation or a particular definition therein."
Obviously the term in question must be interpreted by reference to and on the context of the other terms used, or entities referred to, in the subsection, i.e. Departments, the Gardaí and the Defence Forces. I would have thought that the disputed term must be defined as an entity cognate to these three which, after all, one would have thought constitute entities which are unambiguously "the State" (since the State cannot occupy save by servants or agents, whether those are incorporated bodies or not). Or, to the put the matter in another way, I do not
believe that the term could be interpreted as anything other than a body analogous to the other three, both because of the fact that it is used in that context and since the term, if considered in comparison with those, imports the greatest degree of directness of which one could conceive.
10. Furthermore, even if one excludes reference to the Gardaí or the Defence Forces, it seems to me that it is noteworthy that having regard to the use of the term "Department or office of State" in one phrase three entities only are contemplated in the subsection as being included in the concept of direct occupation and not four. I would have thought that this must mean that the first of the three is so phrased on the basis that a Department and an office are cognate terms. They are married. They are bound together, also, by the use of the word "or" in the same phrase, which in my view imports of the concept of two different but cognate entities "of the State": there is no such connection between that first entity and of the other two or as between the latter two. The punctuation separates them in three phrases
11. In addition, it is not in doubt but that the Board is a "semi State" (non commercial) entity and that such an entity is detached or at least semi detached from the State. It has a separate corporate existence, the State would not be liable on its contracts or have tortious liability for its wrongs; more generally, it can sue and be sued in its own name, without, indeed, so far as suing is concerned, the direct sanction of the Minister. The Board's proposition accordingly is that a corporation which is a semi State body, being a term used for up to 80 years in the State, when it occupies property, does so directly on behalf of the State as an office of State. If we are dealing with the ordinary and natural meaning of words, it seems to me fundamental that a semi State body could never be an office of State as used in the subsection, having regard, as a minimum, to the fact that any meaning attributed to the word or phrase must be a meaning which imports of direct occupation and one cannot have direct occupation by the State by a body with a separate...
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