Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Minister of State is pulling me back in a direction the Chairman has asked me not to take, but I am saying that any politician who is looking for sympathy and who is earning above €100,000 is not going to get it. People at the higher levels of income may have taken reductions in gross pay, or reductions in net income as a result of higher taxes and so on, but the point is that they have a larger disposable income and many of these measures, such as the local property tax, eats in harshly to disposable income. For people on the minimum wage or the average industrial wage, there is a good chance that the property tax that they pay will not be a million miles away from the property tax that others pay, because the values of houses are not astronomically different across the State. There are variations, but there are not massive differences. However, the problem is with the disposable income of different individuals.

These increases, such as the increase in VAT to 23%, the rise in carbon tax and the tax on fuel, small tax increases on cigarettes and wine and the price of a pint, the local property tax, prescription charges, accident and emergency charge increases, all dig into people's disposable incomes. The Minister of State can stand on his soap box for long as he wants and claim that the Government has not touched bands, rates or credits, but that has fallen on deaf ears to many people who have seen the real impact of the budget. The local property tax is one of those big-ticket items for them, and it should be abolished.

Ideologically, the Minister of State is opposed to that view. There are members in his party who were not opposed and who did not share his opinion on the abolition of the 1977 tax. He makes a valid point that the property tax might have been abolished to buy an election. Perhaps it was abolished for that reason, perhaps it was not. Was the Taoiseach's statement at the time about the vampire tax his attempt to buy the election? Are we going to claim that every single person who makes a proposal like this is taking an ideological view on this? It is a property tax and not a wealth tax. It is not an asset. The Minister of State should talk to the 118,000 people who cannot pay their mortgages and tell them that this is their wealth. For many people, it is a noose around their neck. If they could walk away, hand back their keys and say "Goodbye" to the debt, they would be happy to do so. This State is taxing debt to a large degree. Some people are in equity and there is an asset involved. There is value in the roof that is over their head. However, for many people it is just debt. This is an indiscriminate form of tax and it does not provide for services that it was supposed to provide.

There are property taxes right across Europe and each one has a different role, structure and so on. The same is true for wealth taxes, income tax and so on. There is no property tax in the North, but there is a rating system in place where people pay tax for their property but they get services provided as a result. We can argue whether that is right or wrong, but I would be willing to have a debate with the Minister of State on a type of system like that where there are no water charges, bin charges or book costs for going to school, and where people have their septic tanks emptied for free once a year, they get free dental care and health care. Let us have that debate and I will be the first person to discuss some type of system to pay for it, and to make sure that exemptions are built in regarding income and debt and whether the property really is an asset or not. However, that is not what we are at here. This is just a money grab. As Deputy Boyd Barrett has said, this is not going into local services. The local authority budgets are being cut and we are now told that the 80% of property taxes supposed to be retained in local areas will not now happen because Irish Water will make a financial imposition on local authorities. Local authority members are still waiting for their allocations to be announced as they try to prepare their budget.

I have made my point and I will continue to make it.