Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I just have to say something about this when one hears people talking about imagining new ways of taxing and further taxing. Does anybody believe that people will say that they are being taxed out of existence? I will give an example of the residential zoned land tax, how wrong it is and how it will completely backfire and will blow up in the faces of the people who thought it was going to be a good idea to bring it in. Again, it was not thought through.

I will give the committee examples. There are farmers who own land on the edge of a towns or villages. They are now being told that they must pay 3% of the value of that land if they will not develop it. These are people who are farming, are milking cows and who will not sell to developers or to anybody. As I told the committee before, the developers will not be there to buy in any event and will not do it because the politicians have ensured that that business is completely gone, kaput and finished.

I never got to finish the point as to what happened this morning. It was highlighted to me in the strongest possible terms that next year is going to be the real crunch. While I have nothing but respect for the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage and for people who work in the Department, does anybody see what is happening next year? The plans are not proceeding now to ensure that the projects will be shovel-ready, that the planning will be granted and that everything will be put in place. Next year, as far as I am concerned, we will fall off the edge of the cliff altogether when it comes to providing roofs and homes over people’s heads, whether they are privately-owned, owned by the voluntary housing associations or are any other type of local authority housing. We will very much fall short.

This will result in the situation where politicians like me and others will be meeting people who will be in a desperate situation, as they are already. I have seen this whole business of dealing with people looking for accommodation change greatly even in the past two years. It has changed in a frightening way. The number of people who do not have a home or what I would call an affordable accommodation in any shape or form, is frightening and beyond belief. Politicians who are doing clinics must all be getting the same message. I would love to be able to say that we have a solution but then I listen to people talking about a new or another way of taxing. One can only tax people to a certain degree and they will then stay at home, will keep their brains dormant and will not put their hands to work in the creative way they could because they will ask why would they want to bother. That is what is happening now. We have shot ourselves completely in the foot.

There are then people who are jumping up and down. Inside in the Dáil, for example, there are certain people who create a great deal of employment but the only time their names are ever mentioned there is in a derogatory way, where people say that so-and-so creates employment and might have money. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. There has to be a place in society for everybody. We need people who will come into Ireland, we need foreign investment here and we do not want to frighten people away from here. Some people, from the time they get up in the morning, seem hell-bent on turning these types of people off. I will say no more about it as I believe that the committee knows my views at this stage.