Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein)

Before the debate adjourned earlier, the Minister of State outlined that the €160 million this tax will generate will fund local authorities and give them greater choice. The implication of what he said was that local authority members would have more autonomy. Last week's budget put paid to that because it proposed a cutback of €165 million from the Local Government Fund. This proposed poll tax will be collected centrally, redistributed by the Department among the local authorities, which means there will be no connection between the local authorities collecting the charge and how it is redistributed. It is simply a means of moving money around.

The €165 million reduction in the Local Government Fund is being used to pay the interest on the bank bailout loans for the coming year and if this tax gets off the ground, it could be used the same way in future years. I fundamentally object to that because it means the Government will collect a bank tax off householders locally under the guise of a household charge, deposit it in central funds, cut the funding to local government, move the money to pay the bank bailout loans and use the revenue from the household charge to fill the hole. This is a flat tax and applying the same charge to the poor and to millionaires is a problem.

The propaganda line has been that the tax equates to less than €2 a week. Mr. John FitzGerald of the ESRI - the Government takes a great deal of advice from him and his colleagues - is reported to have said that there is no reason the charge could not be as high as €1,300 per annum. Perhaps he will want to deny that but he has been reported in one publication as saying that.

With regard to the manner in which the charge will be levied on different types of houses, bed-sits have been instanced. The response is that the landlord will pay it but that raises two problems. If the landlord pays it, he will recoup it from the unfortunate tenant. If a widow, for example, lets a room in her house to supplement her income, she will face two charges once it is a separate unit. In addition, no allowance is made for the tenant purchase scheme.

The Minister of State asked for alternatives for savings. Yesterday evening, I proposed that the numbers and salaries of senior local authority officials could be cut. Reference has been made a number of times to the fact that up to a few years ago, a county manager, county secretary and county engineer ran the show. Smaller local authorities are much more top heavy than that. That needs to be addressed along with the rates of pay. They all earn more than €100,000 annually.

Every time the Minister of State asks for alternatives, I respond with my party's proposals. We have put forward budget proposals which are perhaps more modest than those of the United Left Alliance but, nevertheless, we proposed a wealth tax and other taxes which would not impact on those earning below €75,000, who will be hit most by this charge. They are the people we need to try to protect. We need to make choices.

Amendment No. 10 includes a list of groups on farm assist, old age pensions, non-contributory pensions, blind pensions and so on. We included these because if the Government is going to push this through, it might at least accept the amendment and not punish those people. We also include all houses vested in any Minister of the Government. This is for good reason given there are people in Army quarters and similar accommodation. I appeal to the Government side of the House-----

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