Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Minister has developed a straw man argument. He is arguing against something we are not even proposing. That shows maybe it is easier to do that than to argue our proposals. Not to get back into the property tax, but there was a rupture between people's ability to pay tax and the value of their homes with the crash. That rupture between the value of a home and a person's income and ability to pay mortgages and so on made it illogical to impose a property tax. In fact the Government was taxing their debt. Sinn Féin's view on these issues is that we want a European model economy. One of the great lies in political discourse is that we can have a European public service delivery on a US tax system.

That is what the Minister is proposing. The evidence is that 7,700 people have been on trolleys at Drogheda and Navan hospitals since the start of January. That is an indication of the level of public provision crash we are experiencing. It is as if the whole town of Trim - men, women and children - was forced onto trolleys in the hospitals serving that locality. The point I am making is that we cannot have both the US-Fine Gael tax system and the European provision. Instead, we have the public service collapse that is being seen at the moment.

I will conclude by responding to what the Minister said about taxation behaviour. He will be familiar with the concept of price elasticity. There is not necessarily a linear relationship between tax or price and behaviour. If one asks people whether they would be happy to pay a little more tax in order to have a health service that does not involve 100 year old grandmothers having to spend five days on trolleys or children having to take painkillers for six months while they wait for dentists to look after their teeth, most of them will say they are prepared to pay an extra 7 cent if that is necessary and if they can afford it. All this amendment is doing is asking people with big pockets to contribute 7 cent more. It is no more and no less than that.