Joe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party)

Earlier, Deputy Mathews of Fine Gael made an interesting point that this country should make a protest by withholding €250 million from one of the bailout interest commitments. He reasoned this would signal to the IMF-EU-ECB the unhappiness of this country with how it is being treated. What the opponents of these household and water taxes — United Left Alliance and other Deputies — are proposing will, however, be a far sharper and clearer message to the IMF-EU-ECB that the Irish people are simply not going to accept any more massive cutbacks in their services and living standards to bail out the financial sharks in the EU market.

Accordingly, any Deputy who wants the voice of the ordinary people of Ireland to be heard should support the boycott campaign of the registration and the payment of this household tax. It will send a clear message to these overlords, representatives in reality, of the European speculators. Come the end of March, more than 1 million households taking such a stand will rock them and make them wonder if they can continue to see our people as a soft choice to bail out this crazed market system.

These amendments should be supported. If the utterances of both Fine Gael and Labour Deputies are to be taken seriously, then they will vote with these amendments. Amendment No. 2 calls for several categories of houses to be exempted, including those affected by pyrite. I was rather taken to see the Fine Gael Member, Deputy Regina Doherty of Meath East — whose acquaintance, unfortunately, I have not had the opportunity of yet making — calling for homes affected by pyrites to be exempted from the household tax. Can we invite her, along with any other Member opposite who agrees with her just contention, to vote in favour of this amendment?

I was alarmed to hear one of RTE's main political correspondents report on the news this evening that Ministers were reporting that they were not getting feedback from Government backbenchers that the household tax was an issue in their constituencies, which is extraordinary. Either they are not listening or they are not relaying the messages they are getting. Just in case they have not got the message, we should ensure that in the next month or so, they are left in no uncertain state of mind with regard to the huge opposition that exists to this tax in order that they will go to Ministers and relay that this is a huge issue on which people up and down the country will take a stand. That will happen in the campaign that has been set up and that will be intensified.

The Minister of State and others rounded on us in regard to having no alternative but they are not listening. The United Left Alliance, for example, brought out a budget statement and, with hard facts and figures, we pointed out that on the basis of information compiled by the Central Statistics Office and the giant international finance company, Credit Suisse, on how wealth is apportioned in this State, the conclusion is that 5% of the wealthiest have 46.8% of the wealth in financed and other assets, not including their homes, worth €219 billion. We suggested a modest wealth tax of 5%, which would bring in €10 billion. That is the alternative to hitting those who are suffering as a result of this crisis and those in negative equity with mortgage commitments that are a terrible burden on them every month as a result of being victims of the blackmail of the speculators in the housing bubble and hitting people generally. That would result in significantly more resources for locals authorities to improve services rather than what is happening where fewer workers are expected to meet more burdens, which is not sustainable.

When we oppose this tax, we are, at the same time, proposing a tax on the wealth that exists in our society. This tax would make a huge difference to public services and investment in jobs and it would regenerate this broken economy, which is the only way we will get out of this hole. The problem is when the Minister of State attacks us for opposing this tax by saying it will cost jobs in local authorities, we cannot take him seriously because the Government's policy, following that of Fianna Fáil and the Green Party, to cut, slash and burn the living standards of our people has ratcheted up unemployment to such a disastrous degree. Sadly and unfortunately, more austerity means more unemployment. When we oppose this tax and demand an alternative to raise far more funding, we are the champions of job creation.

While we will continue to oppose this tax relentlessly, if the Government and the backbenchers who contributed to the debate were serious when expressing concern for those who might be in difficulty, they should at least agree to the extension of the waivers and the exemptions proposed in the amendments. We can give many more examples of exemptions that would be natural if the concern of Government backbenchers was real. They can vote in favour of these amendments and, at least, make the tax less of a burden on a certain strata. We will support these exemptions while continuing to campaign for the removal of the tax completely.

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