Joanna Tuffy (Dublin Mid West, Labour)

When this was announced in the budget it was called a charge. There was no mention of a tax. In legislation it is now being referred to as a tax and the Minister refers to it as a charge at times and a tax at other times. It is in between, neither one nor the other.

It is hard to know how if fits in with future plans for taxation and local government funding. The Minister made the point that this is the first time there is an independent source of local government funding in a long time but it is not part of a local government review. It is not clear that this is what the measure is about. The problem with the charge and the legislation is that it is not part of an overall plan on how to tax or charge people fairly to pay for public services. A flat charge that people pay irrespective of income or wealth is a blunt instrument. It is an ad hoc measure that goes back to the budget before Christmas, when certain measures were introduced and then there was a U-turn. There was a U-turn in respect of mobile homes after the legislation was published. There is unfairness in this. It will hit people irrespective of how valuable their property is, their income or circumstances.

Will nursing home residents be charged this sum? How long will they be charged for? The charges may build up if they are not aware they are liable for it. Local authorities will not know if this is a property to be charged. Those in nursing homes who will be hit for the charge will also be charged under the fair deal legislation for up to 15% of the value of their houses. This will include those on modest incomes, on the State pension and who bought council houses from the local authority. The value of the house may be €150,000 and it may be the one thing the person intended to leave to the family after passing away. It is unfair to hit those people.

There are many anomalies in the Bill. It is not unlike bin charges as they were originally introduced, where there was a flat charge everywhere. In that case, many local authorities had a waiver system for those for whom the charge would cause hardship. There is a similarity because the charges attach to the property. If selling the property, one had to clear arrears and bin charges. I presume that is still the case. There is no waiver or consideration that someone might have a property subject to a charge but not have a major income. The nursing home resident is one example, another is a person with a second property but who became unemployed. That is why this Bill needs more thought and should have been part of an overall plan.

There is no return in services. This is allegedly a new income stream for local authorities but no extra services will be provided by them in return. It is to plug a gap in funding from the national Exchequer as the Government is cutting funding to local authorities. Whether it will make up the difference is questionable because it will create an inequality in terms of what local authorities receive through the charge. I understand that some local authorities will receive more under the charge than others and I hope the Minister speaks more on this aspect.

Material prepared for us by the Library indicates that Kildare, which is the constituency of the Minister of State, Deputy Áine Brady, will raise a low level of revenue through the charge. However, I know that Kildare is not unlike the area in which I live; it is part of the commuter belt and has huge needs. Issues have already been raised by Deputies from Kildare about the lack of funding as the local authority in north Kildare comes out unfairly with regard to local government funding. Huge demands are made on the services because of the huge numbers of families living in the commuter belt.

The implementation of this tax is another example of the Government's policy of ad hocery and crisis management - it is not part of an overall plan - and it is an example of divide and rule whereby the Government picks on a sector of the population which it has decided is doing great. Many of those hit will be people on middle incomes. Other examples of this are the public sector pension levy and the proposals to introduce third level fees.

It is easy for someone to state that he or she does not have a second property - I do not - and to shrug his or her shoulders. I know some people who built holiday homes and who privately rented out accommodation benefited from the various tax reliefs introduced by the Government over the years and there is a certain amount of equity in the fact that they might be hit for a tax now as they legally avoided tax under the various tax structures put in place by the Government on holiday homes and the development of property in incentivised areas. However, many who will be hit by this tax did not benefit in that way. We need to consider how to tax, levy and charge people in a way that is fair and has the common good in mind. The outcome should be to ensure that what we do in terms of our taxation and spending policies are for the common good. None of that is behind this legislation.

Fine Gael differs from the Labour Party on the point of third level fees. Is third level education for the common good? I believe it is and that it does not matter whether it is my children or someone else's who receive third level education. It benefits all of us and our economy so why pick on students and tax them? We all benefit from third level education and we should pay for it through a fair taxation system not pick out sectors of the community, make them pay for it and treat it like it is a consumer good, which I believe Deputy Brian Hayes of Fine Gael did in his article in The Irish Times today.

Why did the Government appoint a group of unelected individuals to come up with cuts? Why does the Government not have an overall vision of how it will tax and use the money collected to bring about a better society? There is no vision in this; it is all part of a very negative approach of which an bord snip nua is one example.

I also want to discuss cutbacks because although this is an alleged new income source for local authorities they have been told to substantially reduce their expenditure. This means they are letting go temporary staff and not recruiting to fill vacancies that arise. They are not employing the people they used to for summer works such as cutting grass in local cemeteries. In a cemetery in my constituency the grass is up to shoulder height because South Dublin County Council cannot employ students to carry out this work during the summer, which it normally did. There is a rota of where to cut the grass in the various cemeteries and as a result families turn up to leave flowers for their relatives and have to wade through uncut grass. We also have other issues, such as uncollected litter at beaches.

Services are being reduced but the money saved must be weighed up against the money lost to the economy if the image of Ireland as a good clean country is damaged by not collecting litter. Will there really be savings? Most of the temporary workers let go by local authorities were on low incomes. They are now on the dole and are being paid to sit at home to do nothing. Local authorities had plenty of work for them to do. The wages they were being paid were not that much higher than what they receive on social welfare but they wanted to work. Last month, the shortsightedness of this type of cutback was borne out by the fact that county and city managers told the Joint Oireachtas Committee on the Environment, Heritage and Local Government that they made a submission to FÁS to ask to be allowed to provide employment through FÁS schemes because they have much work to be done but do not have the workforce to do it.

The Government's policy is shortsighted. We need a plan for the economy that takes into account the broader picture and looks at society as a whole to consider how best to impose taxes and spend public moneys.

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