Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to contribute to the debate on the Bill. I wish to pick up where Deputy Paschal Donohoe left off by stating it is hugely important that there be clarity in respect of the social housing sector. This matter reflects the difficulty regarding the manner in which Second Stage is being rammed through today. The clarity being sought in respect of the relevant sections is going to have to be provided within a matter of 90 minutes or so on Committee Stage which is to be taken on Tuesday next. The really important issues such as this and that which relates to clarifying the exemptions relating to properties bought for or adapted to meet the needs of people with permanent disabilities must be worked out in intimate detail. When responsibility for collecting the property tax is passed to the Revenue Commissioners, they will implement the provisions of the Bill to the letter. As public representatives, we must be in a position to understand the import of these provisions. However, we are not being given the opportunity to achieve such an understanding.

The Finance (Local Property Tax) (Amendment) Bill 2013 is being introduced six weeks after the introduction of the original legislation. The Government should have learned a lesson from what had happened on the first occasion, namely, that ramming legislation through the House and getting the debate on it, particularly on Committee Stage when Deputies have an opportunity to discuss matters in detail, over and done with as quickly as possible is not the way to proceed. Will further amending legislation relating to the local property tax be introduced in April or May, when many of the issues being raised by Deputies become apparent during the implementation phase? As stated yesterday, when we cannot obtain answers to our very legitimate questions and concerns, what we are engaged in today is essentially a charade.

What is proposed in the Bill - the process relating to which will commence when people begin to receive letters from Revenue in the coming weeks - is going to take €250 million out of the domestic economy this year. Next year it will remove a further €500 million. This is happening at a time when the CSO has provided further indications of the serious difficulties being experienced within the domestic economy. The Government is talking up the export economy which is doing incredibly well. Exports are powering ahead and all of the multinationals that have invested here are doing well. At the same time, however, the domestic economy is either not growing or, in certain areas, beginning to fall back. If we continue to remove money from that economy and reduce the ability of people to spend within it, it will not grow. As a result, we will be faced with further job losses rather than employment growth.

Retail figures for January indicate that department store sales were down by 15%, bar sales by 8.1% and motor sales by 3.6%. January is one of the most important months of the year for the motor industry, in which approximately 50,000 people throughout the country are employed, and sales are down. In fact, the sector is haemorrhaging sales. Even in an era when there is genuine choice, bar sales are also down. This is all because people do not have money. Where are they going to find the money to pay property tax this year? Even if they are only going to be obliged to pay half the tax this year because it is being introduced by degrees, they will still not be able to come up with the money.

Deputies have all had people in their clinics about this matter in the past six months. This was particularly the case in recent weeks when the amounts they would be obliged to pay began to become apparent. There are no exemptions for people who are struggling, whose lives have been transformed by the economic crisis and who may have had the ability to pay this tax four or five years ago. In this regard, I refer to the case of a woman I met recently at my clinic. She and her husband had the capability to build and sustain a large house in a rural area. As a result of a tragic accident, however, her husband no longer works and is receipt of disability pension at the age of 35 years. This is a genuine case. The woman in question is not in a position to work and cannot find a job in any event. The house is unfinished - it is not in an unfinished estate - and the couple do not have access to the services which many take for granted. They will be obliged to pay €500 or €600 in property tax this year and a larger amount next year. They do not have that kind of money and neither do the 50,000 people whose mortgages on their family homes are in arrears. However, we are going to proceed - as if we were in some kind of bubble - because there is a belief abroad that people can and will pay property tax. It is very clear that they cannot do so because they just do not have the money. It is for the reasons I have outlined that Fianna Fáil illustrated the other ways in which the money might be raised. I refer, for example, to the introduction of consumption taxes whereby people could pay for their overall consumption through the payment of additional tax. However, the Government is determined to proceed on its current route. The position is going to become serious in the coming weeks when people grasp the implications of the tax.

I made a point 18 months ago - previous speakers alluded to it - that people were going to receive not so much as an invoice as an instruction from the Revenue Commissioners in the next few weeks and that they would genuinely inquire as to what they were going to receive in return for paying property tax. Deputy Paschal Donohoe pulled on his county jersey and stated what was raised in Dublin should stay in Dublin. That is good medicine for the troops. We must consider, however, what people living in rural areas are going to receive in exchange for paying the tax. These individuals are obliged to pay in order to have their waste collected. The troika has stated this is a European-wide model and that everyone throughout the European UNion pays property tax. However, when people in other member states pay their property tax, litter is removed from their areas, street lights are maintained and a range of local government services provided in return. What will people receive here?

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