Barry Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Labour Party promised that front-line workers would be protected and that education fees would not be increased. The public voted for Fine Gael and the Labour Party because they promised an easier and softer way. Closing the gap between income and expenditure was to be difficult but not painful. Those parties won the election with a massive majority and two years later they are now realising that the process has been painful for Members and their supporters. However, it has been torturous for the electorate. I acknowledge that the gap has been closed further and that the promissory note has been dealt with, two years later, but we have not yet seen the retrospective capitalisation of banks. The five point plan is now a one hit wonder. Credit union and local authority bondholders have been burned. Education fees have been raised. The poor are still in poverty. The weak and disabled have been let down. Frankfurt got a walkover from the Labour Party. What the Taoiseach said was unfair, unjust and illegal is about to be enshrined in law and enforced by the Revenue Commissioners.

Our commitment on a residential site tax was not predicated on zero or negative growth rates. It was not based on negative equity, a mortgage arrears crisis or inadequate insolvency legislation that enforces the will of the banks and gives them a veto.

The troika reluctantly accepted this from us and other Opposition parties, but it congratulated Government parties which plough on regardless with an inequitable property tax and which disregard an inability to pay by fining those who cannot pay another 4%. It ploughs on regardless with water metering and charges, in the absence of a promised audit of networks and costs. As we heard this week, it will plough on regardless with another charge on properties in the form of a broadcasting charge. It ploughs on regardless with an archaic commercial rates system that supposedly funds local authorities. It ploughs on with lame excuses for inaction on upward-only rent reviews. It ploughs on blindly accepting the deception of banks that they are lending. It is against this backdrop the Government expects growth, economic activity and jobs to be created. The stark reality is the promissory note deal will not ease any of the burden on families. Instead, this property tax will add to the huge burdens on the suffering families undergo every day of the week

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