Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

Sinn Féin is as aware as anybody that we are living in very difficult times. We have shown in each of our alternative budgets how we would do things differently and how we would face the challenges that the State faces in a fairer way. We know that there is no easy way out of the crisis, but the tax on the family home is not part of any fair solution. It is a tax on the family home for which people worked hard.

The people are not fools. They know where the money is going. They know it will go to pay for some of the excesses in Irish society and that angers them. To put this in context, the combined charges levied on the 1,000 households in Carrickmacross town will pay for the Minister of State's salary. The population of Bundoran comprises 1,600 families and if all of these households pay the local property tax this year, it will pay the Taoiseach's salary. Let us be clear: this tax will not pay for extra services or local amenities. It is simply an extra tax on people who own a home, but fundamentally at the core of this measure is an austerity tax which is being levied on home owners to pay off banking debts. Sinn Féin is clear on this issue - we should not - either in the past or in the future - be paying off the toxic debt of Anglo Irish Bank. The taking on of that debt by the Government was a bad day for the State and the people.

The promissory note is still with us; it will be with us for another generation but under a different name. What about the retrospective recapitalisation of the pillar banks through the ESM? We were told a year ago this month that there had been a seismic shift, but the fact is that this is a tax to pay the debt of the banks. When one looks closely at the figures, one sees how grave the situation is. The local property tax is being earmarked to take in €500 million a year, if every household in the State pays it. If every single household in the State pays it, it will take five and a half years to repay the so-called investment in Irish Life and Permanent. It will take nine and a half years to repay the money sunk into Bank of Ireland, ten and a half years to repay the debt of Irish Nationwide Building Society, 41 and a half years to repay the cost of bailing out AIB and more than 50 years of property taxes to recoup what was paid into Anglo Irish Bank. Overall, that is 125 years of property tax returns simply to pay off the toxic banking debt. Let us not pretend that this tax is anything to do with local services because the people simply are not buying it.

Sinn Féin has a different approach. What we ask is for those who have more to pay more. That is why we are committed to repealing this tax. That is the reason we have given a commitment, if we have the privilege of being elected to government after the next general election, to scrap it. Regardless of the outcome of the vote on this legislation tomorrow night, our party will continue to campaign against this tax because this issue is not going to go away. From next January the anger will increase across the State as people will have to pay a whole year's charge, double what is due this year, and they will note from the legislation that the following January county councils across the State will be able to increase the charge by 15%. We know what Fine Gael and Labour Party councillors are likely to do. Equally, councils will have the power to decrease the tax and every Sinn Féin candidate throughout the State who is successful in next year's local elections will be mandated to vote to reduce the change by the maximum of 15% allowable as soon as possible.

The Bill is part of our alternative. It has a simple aim, namely, to scrap the tax on the family home and refund anyone who has paid the tax this year. Any of our alternatives, or a combination of them, would replace the revenue lost. We provided them for the Department of Finance, the Minister for Finance, the Minister for Social Protection and others in our alternative budget last year.

Since 2008 Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Labour Party have done the wrong thing. They have surrendered to the diktats of the troika, failed to stand up for ordinary people and failed to demand fairness. Irish people, as we all know, have a very special affinity with their own home and land. It comes from our history, eviction and the Land League. Now at the behest of international capitalism but, ultimately, by its own hand, the Government will tax the family home. This extra new tax comes on top of the €28 billion in cuts and taxes introduced in a small number of years. We are told that the Government plans to wrench a further €5 billion in the next few years. It talks loudly about fairness, but the question must be asked as to where is the fairness in this tax. Where is the fairness after five years of austerity in taxing the roof over people's heads, while at the same time many of the crooks and chancers who caused the crash are still walking free, many of them outside the reach of NAMA, some of whom still owe hundreds of millions of euro, much more than this tax will raise this year. Others are walking around or being driven around the State and pocketing super pensions from it. They will be able to pay the tax, of that there is no doubt. Bertie Ahern will not flinch in paying his tax; neither will Mr. Michael Fingleton, but thousands upon thousands of others simply will not be able to pay it, while many others who have paid or will pay have made serious and major sacrifices and endured disturbances in their own lives to appease the Government. Those who cannot pay will be penalised with interest payments or have it siphoned from their pockets, their salaries or social welfare payments. Where is the fairness in this?

The cynicism with which the Government is bringing forward this tax is typical of an arrogant Government that is out of touch with the effects its policies are having on ordinary people. Sinn Féin has shown how we can reach our deficit targets, but we would do so in a different and fairer way. We have shown how a wealth tax - set out in legislation we drafted - on assets above €1 million, excluding working farms and businesses, could bring in more than this tax is earmarked to bring in. We have shown how there is room to increase capital gains tax and capital acquisitions tax. We have also shown how there is room to introduce a betting tax or a third rate of tax for high earners with incomes above €100,000, but the Government is not interested in any of these alternatives. We just have to consider what it is doing. This is a Government that is committed to repaying every last cent, plus billions of euro in interest on Anglo Irish Bank's debt, with which the State has been saddled for generations to come. This is a Government that trembles and sits on its hands while bankers in bailed out banks are awarding themselves ridiculous salaries and pensions, yet the Government tells us there are no alternatives, which is simply not true. There are alternatives, but the Government does not want to hear what they are. It is not interested. There are alternatives and they would not bring the economic and social damage this tax will cause.

Let there be no doubt about it: this tax will push more people into mortgage arrears and others will see the threat of repossession progressed, particularly as a result of the removal of the safeguard in the Dunne judgment by the Government. Ordinary people across this State who are burdened with austerity and who are trying to get on with their ordinary lives - people who have made or who will make the payment - are under serious pressure as a result. This tax is about sucking half a billion euro out of the real economy at a time when the real economy is on its knees.

"It is morally unjust and unfair to tax a person's home[.]" Those are not my words but those of the Taoiseach, Deputy Enda Kenny, not a million years ago. The question I ask of the Taoiseach is what has changed. What of the Labour Party? In 2010, when the prospect of a Labour Party Taoiseach was a possibility, the Tánaiste, Deputy Eamon Gilmore, was unambiguous. He said it would be perverse to ask people to pay a property tax on a property on which they were paying a mortgage which was many cases worth more than the value of the property. What has changed? How has something which was morally wrong, unjust, unfair and perverse now become a good idea? I hope those opposite can answer that when they take to their feet later this evening and tomorrow evening.

I also call on Fianna Fáil to support this Bill. More importantly, I call on it to make the commitment, as Sinn Féin has done, that if it is elected to government after the next election, it will scrap this tax. We all know that this is its baby, but has it changed its mind or did it want to avoid the hard part of bringing it in?

There is no doubt that there is tremendous anger across this State and abroad - people have been forced out of this country as a result of austerity policies - at what this Government is doing. That anger will only increase as this tax increases and places an additional burden on them. Sinn Féin is clear on what its legislation is about. This is the legislation we want to introduce in government, but we want the Government to do the right thing. We want it to hear the cries and pleas and know the suffering and pain of ordinary people across the State who are burdened by austerity and who are scrimping and scraping to try to get by. We want the Government to allow this Bill to pass so that we can have this property tax repealed and a proper and fair alternative put in its place.

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