Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour)

We sat in this Chamber last night and tonight and listened to the posturing of Sinn Féin and others on a Bill which is irresponsible, ill-thought out and ideologically bankrupt. Sinn Féin and others want to repeal recently enacted legislation which has, to date, raised €94.5 million. I did not hear one of them tell me where else we would get that money. These funds enable the continuation of essential local services and ensure we are moving towards placing the funding of local authorities on a stable and sustainable financial footing.

Introducing a charge in 2012 is part of the agreement to which Ireland is committed with the troika and it will be replaced next year by a progressive property tax. I hope the Deputies will support that but I will not hold my breath.

The Local Government (Household Charge) Act 2011 is a vital funding element of public services at local level. The income from that goes towards the upkeep of streets, the maintenance of parks, playgrounds and green areas, the lighting of towns and villages, and the continuation of library services and many more amenities and facilities that people take for granted. Sinn Féin obviously believes these services to communities are unnecessary as it wants to remove the funding stream that enables their provision. Sinn Féin is a party that positions itself to the left on the political spectrum, yet believes an Act that introduces a charge of €100 on the ownership of property - an amount that is by international standards relatively minimal and falls far short of the €800 or more that people living on the Falls Road in Belfast pay under a Sinn Féin Administration - should be repealed. It believes legislation that requires those who own property to contribute towards local services in their area, services that everybody, including the poorest, can enjoy, is inappropriate and should be removed from our Statute Book. It appears that Sinn Féin is losing touch with the realities of everyday life for those who need those very services, in addition to ignoring the urgency of having funding in place that guarantees services. This is politics at its most irresponsible. It is nothing more than a cheap, populist exercise on Sinn Féin's part.

The charge is an interim measure and was always intended to be so. The Government has always been clear on this and on its intention to introduce a full value-based property tax in due course. Designing, legislating for and implementing a comprehensive value-based property tax takes time. The household charge measure is preferable to the alternative of rushing through a poorly designed or badly implemented property tax to meet the troika's timeframe. It is a measure to ensure local authorities have the resources necessary to continue to deliver services to their communities while the option for a value-based property tax is given full consideration. In this regard, an interdepartmental expert group was established in February to consider the structures and modalities of a full property tax. The group has recently submitted its report to the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government. The approach to the report will be considered by the Government in due course.

Many of the comments last night and tonight were framed as if the Government were unaware of or unconcerned by equity issues. This is simply not the case. It is precisely because of these issues that the Government is taking the time required to ensure the full property tax, when introduced, will be as equitable and fair as possible. It is for this very reason we introduced the household charge as an interim measure. Equity is an important element of the terms of reference of the expert interdepartmental group. In the context of the property tax framework, the Government will ensure the issue of fairness and the implications for personal circumstances, income levels and property values are given full consideration. We will not take any lectures from Sinn Féin in that regard.

When imposing the €100 charge, the Government was very concerned with fairness. In this regard, we ensured a number of exemptions and waivers were included in the legislation. There is a balance in that the exemptions and waivers must be targeted at those who genuinely need them while ensuring the overall charge is kept as low as possible. The Government has been successful in this regard. More than 17,200 people have registered for waivers to date. The charge of €100 is low by international and Northern Ireland standards. I am satisfied that many of the most vulnerable groups in society are either exempted or entitled to a waiver from the charge. In addition to the inclusion of exemptions, provision was made for payment by instalment.

Last night, Deputies stated the majority of people have not paid the charge, and they have repeated this tonight. As of 15 June, just under 960,000 residential properties, or 60% of estimated liable properties, had been registered. As stated, €94.5 million has been raised. This is recognition by the broad majority of the population that the charge is necessary to enable the provision of local services and meet our obligations under the EU-IMF programme of financial support for Ireland, which commits us to a property tax.

We all know too well now that our economy, especially our tax revenue, was overly reliant on activity in the construction sector. The decline in the yield from transaction taxes such as stamp duty, capital gains tax and value added tax on property generally has been a major factor in the imbalance in the public finances. We are spending more than we are raising. The necessary correction is sharp and difficult, as we acknowledge. Unfortunately, more needs to be done over the coming years. The introduction of the €100 household charge on residential property is one of the measures that must be taken, reflecting the EU-IMF support programme to close the gap between expenditure and revenue. However, as my colleagues emphasised last night, it should be seen as more than simply a measure to raise revenue. It is a structural change to the State's revenue-raising system and forms the platform on which to base the full value-based property tax in due course.

The Bill proposed by Sinn Féin is wrong. The repeal of the Local Government (Household Charge) Act 2011 would leave a hole in the public finances, putting us in breach of the EU-IMF programme. It would mean basic local services would be discontinued and our attempts to place local government funding on a sustainable footing and to move away from the volatility of the revenue-raising measures favoured by our predecessors would come to naught. It would mean we would have learned very little from the recent economic crisis and would have failed to grasp the need for a sea-change in respect of how we raise revenue to provide basic necessities for our citizens. The Government cares about the financial legacy it leaves to the next generation and that is why I urge the House to reject this Bill. It would be great if we could hear some positive proposals from Sinn Féin occasionally.

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