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

I will not engage further with the Minister of State or rise to him because I am not supposed to get cross. I am clearly hurting him too much by referring to the Government's broken promises so I will discuss instead the unfair property tax.

It is amazing to hear Dublin Deputies now agreeing with me. The very people complaining about it are those who voted for it. It is their property tax. They said nothing in the House about changing it until it started to hit home with their constituents. Suddenly, they started complaining. From the outset I believed that the tax was unfair, imbalanced and unjust. It is amazing to hear those Deputies claim that the tax is wrong on the grounds that people with higher value homes will be unfairly hit. They should have considered that when they voted for the tax in the House, seeing nothing wrong with it at the time.

Houses in the middle of family farms should be valued at the low end of the scale because they are effectively worthless. No one would want to live in a house in the middle of a working farm, listening to cows bellowing at night. It is fine listening to cows if one owns them, but it is not nice listening to someone else's cows roaring in the middle of the night. Such people should be entitled to have their houses valued at the lower end of the scale.

The property tax will place an extreme burden on the people who can least afford it. I have sympathy for people who took out mortgages at the height of the bubble. They face significant decisions, for example, whether to pay their mortgages or the property tax each month. If they are unable to pay the tax, there will be considerable repercussions, as the tax is handled by Revenue.

While I have continuously stated my opposition to the charges, I have never actively encouraged people not to pay. Some Members of the Opposition who have campaigned against the tax might have told people not to pay while others have not, but responsible politicians would never tell people not to pay a charge. It would be like telling someone not to tax a car. One cannot do that. It is the law of the land, put in place by the Government. People must comply with it. I will always respect this fact, although I might not always agree with it. One must pay what one must pay.

I note the Government's living city initiative. This tax relief is narrow, in that it only applies to dilapidated Georgian houses. Why is it confined to cities in this way? As the cities involved are Limerick and Waterford, are Ministers being parochial? That is for them to answer.

I welcome the idea of providing tax relief on living in city centres, but where is the tax incentive for people to live in rural areas? This is a worthwhile question. Why could there not have been an imaginative tax relief for dilapidated buildings in villages? It would have been a boost to the building industry, which Government Deputies know is on its knees. The buzz that would have come from an incentive to encourage the rejuvenation of smaller towns and villages would have been significant. I urge the Government to consider the idea of a living town and village initiative and see how it goes.

I must mention the way in which front-line services are being attacked. I had hoped for more imagination on the Government's part rather than some of the roads being taken at present. I must also mention the effect of Garda station closures. I proved in the House that keeping a rural Garda station closed would cost more than keeping it open. It is amazing to pass closed stations and to see the lights on. The pole with the blue light outside the door that indicates a station is open is gone, but the lights and heating are on inside. All of the facilities are still in place and people are being paid to maintain them in an idle state. It was a remarkable ministerial decision devoid of reality.

In case people believe that I am only referring to rural stations, I will refer to Stepaside. That the Minister allowed a station of 34 gardaí to be closed on his watch, leaving thousands of people without a station - it was in his constituency, so he should have known better - drives home the point that he is away in cloud cuckoo land. As with the decision to close the rural train network many years ago, the Minister's decision will be remembered as a disastrous one.

I ask for the Leas-Cheann Comhairle's indulgence as I wish to end positively by welcoming the increase in tax relief on tuition fees. Given the high cost of education at second and third levels, however, more should be done to help families that are struggling to educate their children.

The Government must start recruiting new gardaí. That Templemore is closed is a disaster. I hope that the Government will consider this issue in the near future. I also hope that more will be done for our farming community to encourage people to keep farms. Transferring land to future generations is expensive. This issue should also be considered to try to encourage the early transfer of farms. It is nice to see people starting at an early age instead of needing to wait until someone is elderly or dies before the farm is transferred.

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