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

For example, all income from savings in excess of €1 million per annum; stocks and shares and all other financial products in public companies; shares in private non-trading companies; and land, buildings and second and subsequent homes. The Minister referenced second and subsequent homes. If the Minister were to abolish the property tax and impose a €400 tax on second homes, a person who owns two homes would be a net saver under the Sinn Féin policy because instead of paying €300 property tax on the first home and €300 in property tax on the second home he or she would pay only €400 on the second home. What is being proposed would only apply in respect of multiple homes. The key issue is that the wealth of a family in terms of the price of a house suffered a massive rupture because of the housing crisis, which rupture has not been experienced anywhere else in the world. As a result, property prices are not a good analysis of the wealth of a family. The Minister has frozen the property tax this year because he knows that the value of property over the next couple of years could increase so much it would be out of all proportion to the wealth of the family. That freezing of the property tax is an admission that the tax is a blind, blunt instrument to identify the wealth of a family, which does not take into consideration the debt of a family.

There is an ideological reticence within the Fine Gael Party to take money from those who are extremely wealthy in this country and to invest that money in services for those are extremely poor. That is the bottom line. That cannot continue. The Minister can dress this up any way he likes but it cannot be hidden from people. I propose to press the amendment.