Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Independent)

This is called a household charge but it is a tax which is unfair and which will be quickly seen to be so. The county council system, established in 1898, has again been placed at the centre of this provision. The local authority system has suffered through a lack of reform. It was put in this same position in the early 1980s and irreparable damage was done at that time. The current funding of local government is provided by the Exchequer and the motor tax fund, which was ring-fenced in recent years. The quality of the local authority services is diminishing in recent years because funding has been reduced. The failure of this Government to even articulate the need for radical local government reform will contribute to the questions being asked by people as to what services will be provided by the payment of this tax.

I presume the equalisation fund will apply to the Local Government Fund in this case. The household charge will be collected centrally and the Local Government Management Agency will collect it. A certain element of confusion exists as to how this will operate and which body will send out the bills, but I will not deal with that matter now. The Local Government Fund included an equalisation grant and while I am not opposed to an aspect of solidarity, in areas of population growth such as the greater Dublin area, including the three surrounding counties, there has not been a fair allocation of services. For example, County Kerry has twice as many local authority staff as County Meath although its population is smaller. The same level of service cannot be delivered if the local authority is short-staffed. This measure will do nothing to address that issue.

People will ask why they should pay and what they will get in return for payment of the charge. This is a new property tax; it is a poll tax. It is fundamentally unfair because it does not differentiate between the ability to pay of a person living in a two-bedroomed apartment who is struggling to pay a mortgage and a person living in a very large home which is mortgage-free.

The EU-IMF programme did not commit to a household charge but it committed to a property tax. We need to define what is property. The view of many people is that they have no choice but to provide themselves with a home as there are few other housing options available. Many people do not regard their home as being a property. Stamp duty is a form of property tax which was paid on inflated property prices and this is not being accommodated in the exemptions. These people do not own property; they own debt and they are being asked to pay a property tax on debt. The charge of €100 may not seem a lot of money to some people but 15% of the population is at risk of poverty and the charge of €100 will cause serious problems for some families. The exemptions only apply to those living in local authority or voluntary housing or those who qualify for mortgage interest supplement - for which only part-time workers qualify - or living in a defined ghost estate, which might not include NAMA estates. Everyone else must pay.

I remember the Local Government (Financial Provisions) Act 1983 because I was in the forefront in the campaign of civil disobedience. In that period the Offences Against the State Act was invoked and water and refuse collections were denied. There will come a snapping point and this tax will be it. There is a big difference between having to make a conscious decision to pay a charge rather than a deduction from pay or from welfare payments. People will make an active decision which will be to resist.

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