Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

This morning the latest survey from the Irish League of Credit Unions revealed that 1.6 million people are left with €50 or less to spend at the end of each month after they meet their household bills. The survey reflects that since October last an additional 230,000 people have fallen into this bracket. This is a direct result of the Government's austerity policies and its most recent austerity budget. That is before the dreaded family home tax is imposed.

The family home tax is the brainchild of Fianna Fáil and it will have serious implications for households that are already teetering on the brink. It will especially punish those on low and middle incomes. It will punish social welfare recipients and even those with disabilities. It takes no account of ability to pay, people's mortgages, the amounts people have paid in stamp duty or whether a household is in negative equity. The Government is almost two years in office and its response to those struggling with significant mortgages is to lump more taxes on them, but this is a tax too far.

Where does the Minister, Deputy Howlin, propose that these 1.6 million people should get the money to pay the family home tax? The Minister should bear in mind that these are not only families dependent on social welfare payments. Many of them are working families and families in which two people are out at work, but they simply cannot afford this family home tax. Where are they to get the money? How many more citizens will be pushed over the brink by this family home tax?

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