John Halligan (Waterford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I will be as brief as I can. There are a number of Deputies who want to contribute.

There is confusion and concern here. The confusion is that, although I am opposed to household charges of any form, when the household charge and the property tax were introduced, the indications were that these would not be placed upon those living in local authority houses.

The concern is that this may very well no longer be the case. It could be sneaked in under the guise that each local authority will be lumped with a bill that would be the equivalent of the property tax rate on its local authority houses. All that will happen is that it could very well force local authorities to increase rent on hundreds of thousands of already struggling families living in local authority houses, many of whom are unemployed or on low incomes and not in a position to pay any more to anybody. We need some clarity and we need to know the certain categories that will be exempt. Can the Minister state categorically that somebody living in a local authority house will not pay the property tax and that it cannot be imposed on them in another form such as rent increase or otherwise by the local authority?

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