Dessie Ellis (Dublin North West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

When this Government was elected in 2011, it was a massive change in Irish politics. However, the reality is that while a lot changed in terms of faces and names, the politics pretty much stayed the same. It stayed the same for two reasons, namely, because Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil are not really all that different, when it comes to policy anyway, but also, despite what Fine Gael and especially Labour had told the people on the campaign trail, the Government parties had already bought into the idea that they would continue with the IMF-ECB bailout and only seek cosmetic changes which could be rammed through and sold as victories.

The result is a Government that only thinks about ordinary low and middle income earning people, unemployed people, people with disabilities and young and old people as an afterthought. While the public have sometimes forced some small row-back on certain issues, the Government has done what it wants and ignored the potential hurt this might cause. It continues that hurt through the pursuit of the family home tax. Sinn Féin has been clear since this tax was floated as an idea. It is the wrong tax, at the wrong time and in the wrong circumstances. It is wrong because it treats the family home as an asset, regardless of the circumstances of the owner and their family. It is certainly likely that the homes of any of the Cabinet could be considered assets. I hope the Minister, Deputy Hogan, has cleared up the issue of fees owed on his Portuguese property as he asks people to stump up for this tax.

Families up and down the State are struggling - struggling to pay bills, to keep the lights on and keep the children clothed and fed. They are struggling to keep the roof over their heads. Now, they have to struggle further to pay this unfair tax. It comes at the wrong time because of the dire financial position of so many homeowners throughout the State, where their homes and their mortgages have become a millstone around their necks, a millstone Fine Gael and Labour want to tax. These people, who in many cases paid huge sums in stamp duty and do not fully own their homes, are asked to shell out for a home which, if they sold it in the morning, would still leave them owing tens if not hundreds of thousands of euro to lenders due to negative equity.

Apart from a notable few like Apple or Bertie Ahern, most are quite willing to pay their way in tax terms. They know that tax is a requirement to provide the vital services they need, and they know they must pay for the good of themselves and wider society. This breaks down when it is considered what people are really paying for these days. People do not see their hard-earned money being used for understaffed hospitals and crumbling roads; instead, they see it going into the coffers of bondholders and NAMA developers. They feel utterly bitter, and they are right to feel this way. It is hard to stomach forking out money which could make their children's lives more comfortable, keep the heating on just a little more this winter or fill the shopping basket a bit more each week, in order to pay for debt they did not run up and should never have had to pay for in the first place. It is particularly hard to stomach when they know that whether they pay it voluntarily or have it taken from them, they will have to pay it.

I would also like to mention the utterly wrong practice of levying this charge on local authority housing. While we oppose the tax in its entirety, it was a new low to discover that local authorities were to be included for this liability. It really puts paid to the idea that this tax is anything to do with funding local services. In many areas, the most important local service provided is housing. Local government has been cut and cut again while housing waiting lists are at an all-time high. Dublin City Council is spending €1.5 million more on RAS a year than it is given by the Government yet this is still not enough as people continue in overcrowded, unsafe, unhealthy and overpriced accommodation, waiting for something to become available from a dwindling public stock.

These people did not party in the boom and they did not go mad. They struggled and hoped that, just maybe, the Celtic tiger might have some impact on the fact their kids go to school sick from the damp on the walls of the tiny rooms they share with their siblings. I will not hold my breath to see how much of the money raised from the home tax goes to fix those problems. I have much more confidence in the likelihood that their rents will be raised to pay for the shortfall in council coffers, which will be considerable.

I want to also mention a number of estates in my own area which have been included for this tax although they were originally exempt as unfinished estates, such as Heathfield, Mayeston, Hampton Wood. It is hard to understand how one estate is exempt, like Priory Hall, while others are not. Previously, they were all included in the exemptions and it is difficult to understand how only one estate in the whole of Dublin is included for exemption in this case.

This is a very unjust tax and it should be abolished. I ask the Minister to reconsider it and ask him and his colleagues to examine their consciences in regard to what they are doing to the people. This is only one stealth tax and it will be followed later by the water tax.

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