Gerald Nash (Louth, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Rates should never have been abolished as they were in 1977 when Fianna Fail bought an election and drove the country to the brink of bankruptcy. Little did we know that 30 years later it would finally accomplish the trick. Had we had a property tax in place then, we might have tempered the insane property bubble which dragged our economy into ruins. We were the only country in Europe which did not have a property tax.

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