Clare Daly (Dublin North, Socialist Party) | Oireachtas source

The local property tax is misnamed. It is a home tax and a further burden on people who are already struggling and it should, of course, be abolished. I support the motion on that basis. It should never have been implemented in the first place. It is an absolute insult to homeowners struggling with hefty mortgages and people who have sacrificed all their lives to put a roof over their heads to find that taxation is being foisted on their shoulders when an alternative marginal increase in income tax on high earners could have yielded a similar amount of money. It is more insulting when one considers the sacrifices those people are making to pay the tax but that it will not be used to benefit local services. The dogs in the street know local services are under attack. Instead, this is a bondholders' tax.

We have listened to the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, Deputy Hogan, and his Government colleagues bragging that they have brow-beaten people into registering for the tax. They may think they have convinced people but methinks they do protest too much. The tax is hated. The fact that the Government had to introduce such draconian legislation to brow-beat people into registering is proof not of its success but of its weakness. We do not know how many Mickey Mouses and Donald Ducks have registered for the tax but I would think it is quite a few. Many more registered who indicated that they will pay cash, but will not when it comes to the time. One way or another, people will resist this. The Government may succeed in squeezing it out of them in this way because of the Revenue Commissioners, but people will only end up failing to pay their mortgages and not being able to buy goods in the shops. The legacy of what the Government has robbed from them will be the price the Government will most definitely pay in the next election.

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