Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry South, Independent)

They are terrified. There are old people struggling on low incomes and husbands and wives who were both working a couple of years ago but who now have absolutely no work. The latter are living on welfare and trying to pay back massive mortgages. On top of that, they will be hit with the property tax, which they believe is unfair because it is treating struggling families in the same way as multi-millionaires with big mansions. That cannot be and is not right. This is why it makes sense to vote tonight.

I have listened to the debate since 7.30 p.m. Members on the Government side have attacked Members on this side and suggested they are not entitled to come in here and introduce a Private Members' Bill. Of course there are entitled to do so. They are elected and Sinn Féin is entitled, as a party, to introduce a Private Members' Bill. It is wrong for people to criticise the party for doing so. If the very people that were attacking Sinn Féin tonight had been at the public meetings, attended by 500, 700 or 1,000 people, and had been told the people believed what the Government was doing was unfair, they would certainly not be looking down their noses at the Members who introduced the Private Members' Bill tonight. They would be saying the Members are elected to make their case.

There are people watching what is happening this evening. They are listening to what Members have to say about the €100 charge. There are those who are genuinely terrified as to what the charge will be in the future. They wonder whether they will be able to pay and what they will have to sacrifice to come up with the fee. These people have been hit hard, they are vulnerable and are at a very low time in their lives. There are struggling to send young children to school and educate them in the best way they can. They are trying to maintain a certain standard of living for them and to keep food on the table.

To be sneering and laughing at the Bill tonight is wrong and disrespectful to people outside the House. The day on which one treats people with disrespect is a bad day for politics and the politicians involved. They should not be looking down on anybody. I am concerned about the people affected and I am grateful for having had the opportunity to speak.

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