Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Independent) | Oireachtas source

If Mr. McCabe says that the bigger ratepayers are disproportionately impacted and the same take must come from the business sector, presumably, he is talking about a redistribution between the large, medium and small. Has IBEC done any calculations on the impact on the smaller ones? In fact, proportionately, the SME sector would probably be the largest employer. I presume that would impact on jobs.

On the funding of local authorities, the local property tax will not make a difference. In the general purposes grant, motor taxation was ring-fenced. The motor taxation receipts started dropping in 2008. They fell from €999 million in 2007-08 to just over €600 million in the general purposes grant. As the household charge came in, the general purposes grant dropped. As the property tax is coming in, it is dropping further. It is a replacement tax. It will not provide what Mr. McCabe is talking about. In fact, it is likely to take more money out of the pockets of the customers who will be shopping in the shops of which he spoke and it will not produce a fund large enough to make any kind of a different. There is less money to spend in the overall sense. It will not make the difference that will produce an option to reduce rates that might reduce costs where the consumer gets a benefit on the other side of it. I do not see the logic of Mr. McCabe's argument in that regard.