Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (Donegal North East, Sinn Fein)

The Government must be honest and accept that the household charge is a mess and it will not be possible to pursue through the courts hundreds of thousands of citizens it knows to be honest people who have worked hard throughout their lives. I can only speak with authority about my home county of Donegal. There was a grassroots campaign of ordinary people across the county who decided to stand up against the charge. They organised meetings in packed rooms across the county. I looked at the profiles, read the local newspaper columns and followed it very closely. These were not radical far left people or something like that. These were ordinary people who voted Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, the Labour Party, Sinn Féin and independents. They voted across the spectrum but they just cannot accept this charge as being fair. They know where the money is going. They know this is not some scheme to fund local council services. Such services have been run down incrementally over recent years, especially in capital investment. From a peak of around 1,300 staff in the county council, we are down to fewer than 1,000 now. That represents an almost 25% cut in our staff. We have seen a dramatic collapse in capital investment across the county in roads, marine, water and sewerage infrastructure, yet we are told that this charge is for council services. As we speak, we are seeing libraries and local community services being squeezed in partnership with the council.

I discovered something last week that really concerns me, which is the statistics on payment that local authorities are putting out. The grassroots group in Donegal that has campaigned against this charge quickly disproved a statement put out that 45% of the households had not paid. They demonstrated that 63% of households in Donegal have not paid this charge. Is the Minister of State seriously going to bring them all to court? Will he criminalise two thirds of households in Donegal and half of the households of this State?

The leaks to the national media in recent weeks that Revenue officials will be deployed to collect the charge - the whole thing is a farce at the moment - clearly demonstrates that this whole project has not worked. Will the Government learn from these lessons and take the opportunity to engage constructively with us over the next two evenings, or will it replace the stick with an even bigger stick from Revenue? The idea of taking money directly from PAYE workers has met with some resistance from the chairperson of the Labour Party, Deputy Keaveney. I am not sure if he did a solo run or if that is the policy of the Labour Party. If it is the policy of the Labour Party that it will not support the deployment of Revenue officials, it will be an interesting battle between the two Government parties on how to resolve this. They are all over the place on this issue. It is clear the people who voted Fine Gael and the Labour Party in the last election have been let down and have rejected this.

I can only speak for Donegal. I am really proud that two thirds of the people of Donegal have not paid this charge. All sorts of pressure was applied to them and it is remarkable they have taken that decision. Donegal was historically a very conservative county. These are people who never wanted to protest and never imagined they would not make a contribution, as it was presented, to their local council, but that is what they have done. People of a similar vein across the State have clearly made the same decision.

I ask the Fine Gael and Labour Party Deputies to take the opportunity to engage constructively with all of us who oppose this charge and work out alternatives, because such alternatives exist. Sinn Féin presents such alternatives before every budget and we will do it again later this year. We will show them alternative routes to meet the targets they have to meet. There are choices. They do not have to make these choices. This has failed. There will be failures and successes in government, but the key challenge is to accept the failures and move on. This has been a failure. The Government needs to change direction and look at some other way of gathering resources. There is flexibility under the troika programme to do that, so it should take that opportunity.

Are the Minister of State and his colleagues seriously suggesting tonight and tomorrow that they will go after hundreds of thousands of households in this State that they know to be honourable, decent people? Will they go down the road of bringing them before the courts and criminalising them? They know they will not do that, so let us walk away from this household charge, reimburse the people who paid it and look at a fairer way of achieving this.

Even the IMF - not a bastion of global social justice - has stated that the Government has to find a fairer way of doing this. I will leave it to the Minister of State and his colleagues to make their choices, but they face serious problems. The chairperson of the Labour Party has stated his party will oppose this going through Revenue. I wonder will they honour this promise. The Government is facing a battle on all fronts, so it should walk away from this and change direction.

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