Joe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party) | Oireachtas source

I represent many decent taxpayers in that regard. Ms Feehily has stated today that this is a new tax and that "our job in Revenue is to collect taxes and duties for the Exchequer in accordance with the law". She has also stated that paying any tax is "unlikely" to generate happiness. I say "Amen" to that, and it is particularly the case when the new tax is loaded onto the people by the Government to pay the debts of speculating bondholders and bankers who profiteered wildly in the Irish property budget and had bad private debts laid at the feet of our people.

I will speak very bluntly, although not for very long. Ms Feehily has been brought here for one reason, as she is unwillingly and unwittingly providing an alibi for the parties in Government and helping them evade responsibility for a draconian new tax they have introduced. She is distracting attention from the culpability of both Ministers and backbenchers for this hated new burden. Ms Feehily has stated her job is to collect taxes in accordance with the law. Listening to Ministers and backbenchers over the past week, I have asked myself where the hell the law came from. Am I right in thinking that in December 2012, the Fine Gael and Labour Government, including backbenchers, designed and manufactured what I call a crude weapon of austerity, the Finance (Local Property Tax) Act? They loaded the weapon with draconian powers to intimidate, frighten and coerce decent taxpayers into paying for this unfair new weapon. The Revenue Commissioners, in doing the Government's dirty work, is pulling the trigger, leading to Ministers and backbenchers screaming blue murder. Necks of flint have been on display today and in the course of the past week on behalf of Government representatives.

Next year a new water tax will be inflicted on decent householders and taxpayers. When people rightly begin to scream about this new burden and learn about it in greater detail, I fully expect the contractors digging up pavements to install water meters to be dragged in here to explain their audacity in facilitating this new tax. That is about as much credibility as the Government Deputies have shown in requiring representatives of the Revenue Commissioners to come here today. Ordinary taxpayers are very angry about the property tax, and they are right. The elderly, unemployed and poor people who have been saddled with this austerity bondholder tax are quite distressed. It is a new hardship, and therefore the Revenue Commissioners should be very conscious in how they deal with ordinary people and the distress and fear that is disgracefully being brought about by Government policy.

I have a question. When Ms Feehily heard in the past week the deputy Prime Minister of the country and Government Deputies screaming objections to the letter demanding that people should pay the home tax which they had introduced, did she say to herself how pathetic that was and ask who they thought they were fooling?