The High Court dismissed an appeal by the Revenue Commissioners against a finding that a Local Property Tax booklet sent to residential property owners breached the Official Languages Act 2003. The court upheld the Language Commissioner’s decision that the booklet had to be issued in Irish or in Irish and English.
The judgment was delivered by Mr Justice Colm Mac Eochaidh on 20 February 2015. The appeal, under section 28 of the Act, was on a point of law.
Revenue argued that the booklet was part of private correspondence with individually named taxpayers. It had been enclosed with a personalised letter and tax return containing details specific to each property owner, in an envelope marked “Private and Confidential”. Revenue said the communication was with individual taxpayers, not the public generally or a class of the public.
The booklet explained the Local Property Tax and how to pay it. An earlier edition, dated 31 January 2013, had been published in Irish and English in a single publication and distributed to tax offices, libraries and citizen information centres. A later edition, dated February 2013, was posted to residential property owners with their letters and returns. That edition was in English, except where recipients had registered to conduct their tax affairs in Irish, and referred to both the 2012 Local Property Tax Act and a 2013 amendment bill.
The Language Commissioner had investigated complaints under section 21(c). The Commissioner found that Revenue had failed to comply with sections 9(1) and 9(3) by issuing written information that was not in Irish or bilingual. The investigation report said the booklet’s information was distributed to about 1.69 million property owners across the State, a group connected by their ownership of property and need for information about the tax.
The judge held that the booklet was written communication from a public body to an identifiable class of the public—people who owned residential property—and was intended to provide that class with information. Sending it alongside personalised documents in a confidential envelope did not change the booklet’s character or remove the language requirement. The earlier public information campaign using the same booklet also supported that conclusion.
The court left open whether a personalised letter sent to every member of a class could itself fall within section 9(3), saying that question did not need to be decided in this appeal. It also agreed that a package containing several documents could be divided, with section 9(3) applying to some items but not others. The appeal was dismissed and the Commissioner’s findings stood.