Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Section 6 was included in the legislation last year. Obviously it is being done in a transparent way in that the Minister of State is telling us that he is hijacking this money from the Local Government Fund. This proposed amendment is not about motor tax revenue, rather it is about that revenue with part of it being used to pay off the national debt. That is the reality of it. I want to be as transparent as possible about that and I find the approach taken objectionable.

The reason there will be more income in the fund is that there is an increase in the amount of motor tax that people are being asked to pay. There is a considerable number of older cars in the national fleet. With the distance many people live from where they work, they have the added burden of coping with the expense of the cost of commuting to and from work. They have to pay road tax to have a vehicle on the road but rather than paying road tax they are paying a more general tax. I wish to press the point that this is unfair. The Title of the Bill, Motor Vehicle (Duties and Licences) Bill 2013 should also include a reference to the national debt if we were to honest about what the Bill is about.

I wish to return to a point the Minister of State made in response to the needs and resources model. That model is fundamentally flawed in that the baseline when it was taken counted the needs of local authorities, which were varied. For example, counties with communities that developed from the time of that baseline do not have new unmet needs included in that calculation. There are wide variations in the staffing arrangements in local authorities. For example, in County Meath there has been an increase in the population of approximately 40,000. There are more people living in County Meath than there are in County Kerry but the number of staff in the local authority in Kerry is double the number in the local authority in Meath. The need there would be greater because there is a staff complement that will have to be paid. New facilities and services for growing populations are not included in that model and it is fundamentally unfair. There is a double unfairness in this respect in some parts of the country because of the way that the needs and resources model is calculated.

I do not know if the Minister of State heard Dr. Prionnsias Breathnach from NUIM interviewed on the "Morning Ireland" this morning; he spoke about the potential distribution of the property tax, the equalisation model and the types of difficulties that will be posed.

This has not been considered in the context of the needs and resources model and I believe there will be serious problems with it. I object to section 6. The Title is not correct and I wish to put on record that I will oppose both.