Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry South, Independent) | Oireachtas source

First, as all Members are aware, the Minister is a politician of great experience and ability who is highly regarded in the Houses of the Oireachtas. Moreover, I only say that because I mean it. Equally, however, his experience will lead him to know about the people Members on this side of the House are speaking about this evening. They are talking about young couples who are put to the pin of their collars to try to pay their mortgages. Last Saturday, in common with my colleagues in the Chamber, I held my clinics. I met people, whose names I recorded in my book, who have left their houses because they cannot afford to live in the houses on which they are paying a massive mortgage. This week, they asked me the reason Members were going to allow the Government to introduce a property tax on property in which they cannot afford to live. I met a husband, his wife and their little child, who told me how they had moved back into her parents' house because they could not afford the oil, electricity or cost of living in their home, having built it at the height of the boom. They now are being told they are obliged to pay a property tax on it. I am grateful to Deputy Donnelly for outlining a great lie in this House, that is, Members who come into the Chamber and blindly support the Government, while giving the impression they are better off working within the Government because they can do things from within. I have a message for such Members this evening and I hope they are watching on their monitors. The people of whom I am thinking have not delivered a wheelbarrow of tar to their constituencies and could not deliver a lottery grant to their constituencies.

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