A number of households have been told they must pay local property tax despite their homes having pyrite.

Sinn Féin TD for Dublin Fingal Louise O'Reilly called on the Minister for Finance to intervene after the households were told they would be in receipt of exemption until 2016.

Deputy O'Reilly said: "It is not their fault that their houses and their homes have pyrite. They could had no way of knowing when they bought their homes that pyrite was present. They sent in all of the documentation. They complied with all of the rules as they understood them. They even went to the trouble of ringing the Revenue Commissioners to double-check that they did in fact have the exemption, and they did this every year. They sent in piles of documentation- everything that was requested of them. They further went to the trouble of making phone calls just so they could be clear about it. Again, it is not their fault that the records and recordings do not go back far enough to capture this, but they have told me and assured me they did everything possible.

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"I welcome that the Minister has said that he will revert to Revenue to see if anything can be done on this. If there is a chance that Revenue has the ability to employ flexibility in these cases, then it is important that it is done. I have contacted the Ministers office to ensure that this commitment is followed through on and I hoe that the Minister, and Revenue, can work with those affected in this regard."

(CD/LM)