Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Title of the Bill is somewhat misleading. In schools of policy, they say that a good policy must meet three criteria: it must be technically correct, which is usually the job of the officials; it must be politically acceptable, which is usually the job of the politicians; and it must be implementable. This so-called local property tax seems to fail all three of those. It is clearly not politically acceptable. The Minister will ram it through. He will whip his Deputies to vote but it is not politically acceptable to the public. It will be difficult to implement because the Revenue Commissioners do not have the kind of data they need and they may not have the resources they need.

I am most surprised at the Minister, Deputy Noonan in respect of the following area: the Bill is technically flawed. I am curious as to where this arises. It can arise from one of only four sources, namely, from the Minister himself, the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Howlin, the officials in the Department of Finance or the officials in the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform.

The Thornhill report.

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