Brian Ó Domhnaill (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

This legislation will inevitably cause great hardship to many people across the country. Let us face it. Fianna Fáil opposes the legislation on the basis that it is simply the wrong time to impose a property tax on individuals who do not have the money to pay it. The tax will also cause the property market to stagnate and will affect the recovery of the economy. It is simply the wrong time to introduce a property tax.

I want to Minister of State to accept the fact that at least 12% of mortgage holders are in arrears of 90 days or more. Davy Stockbrokers has estimated that 50% of all mortgages are in negative equity. Middle-income families are being squeezed. They are the people who do not receive third level grants or medical cards. They are being totally squeezed at the moment and cannot take any more. Their disposable income is gone and they are having to sit down with the Money Advice and Budgeting Service to remortgage and refinance loans. Middle-income Ireland cannot take any more. The new vulnerable in our society are middle-income families, who simply cannot afford to take any more. They are the same people who will be asked to pay the property tax on top of the initial household tax.

The Government is targeting the same people who paid large amounts of stamp duty during the economic boom. The average stamp duty payment between 2000 and 2010 was ¤20,000 per individual. The duty was paid together with local authority development levies, and in my county of Donegal there was a maximum levy of around ¤7,000. People paid those sums because they wanted to live in rural Ireland, but now they are being penalised.

All of this comes down to politics. One can blame the last Government, one can blame Santa Claus, one can blame the man in the moon-----