Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for his response. I acknowledge that the original memorandum of understanding in December 2010 provided for the introduction of a property tax in 2012. The Government introduced that in the form of a household charge. The memorandum further provided for an increase in the property tax in 2013. Having said that, it would be deeply unwise to proceed with a property tax at this time given the conditions that prevail in the economy. The Minister knows all the facts - 435,000 people on the live register; one in five owner-occupier mortgages in trouble; half of mortgages in negative equity; and 160,000 people having paid stamp duty of €10,000 or more in the past ten years. These are not all different people and some people fall into a number of these categories. However, a great many families simply do not have a spare €300 or €400 to pay a property tax. My question, which the Minister did not answer, was whether he has raised with the troika the idea of replacing the property tax in the budget for 2013 with alternative taxation measures of an equal value.

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