Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

He must be a very poor saver if he only has €75,000 saved. The wealth tax proposed by Sinn Féin would impact on Ciarán to the tune of €7,150 per annum. Leaving aside the fact that Sinn Féin appears, or has chosen, not to understand the difference between wealth and income, raising €800 million from a wealth tax such as that would require the equivalent of 155,000 Ciaráns in Ireland if annual income is excluded or 111,000 Ciaráns if annual income is included in the wealth tax calculation. I do not know too many Ciaráns and I very much doubt that there are well over 100,000 of them. I would certainly like to meet them and introduce them to the Revenue Commissioners to see how more tax can be extracted from them within the scope of existing legislation.

I would genuinely welcome a debate on the wealth tax proposal, because that is our analysis of what would be involved if there is €800 million available. To be fair, the Deputy has acknowledged it might not be €800 million. He referred to some comments the Minister made in the past that it could be between €300 million and €500 million. However, even that would make a massive contribution to closing the deficit, so let us have the debate, get the facts and scrutinise the proposal in detail. It would serve the national interest considerably to get to the bottom of that issue. Are there really tens of thousands of people in Ireland who will fall into Sinn Féin's wealth tax net, such that €800 million will be raised? I very much doubt it. A Merrill Lynch report which the party cites estimated that there were more than 18,000 people living in the State with assets of more than $1 million or €778,000. I have reached the inescapable conclusion that the Sinn Féin tax proposals simply do not add up.

It is not just in regard to the money that can be raised from a wealth tax that Sinn Féin has been leading people up the garden path. In 2011, before the introduction of the household charge, a Sinn Féin spokesperson confirmed that at least five of the party's 14 Deputies would not be paying the charge. At the time, the party's spokesperson stated that he would not pay the charge. Those who were considering non-payment were clearly given the impression that Sinn Féin would stand by them and stay the course with them. However, since then Sinn Féin has run away from non-payment. Those who were led to believe that non-payment was a viable option in the long term are faced with the fact that the household charge arrears will be converted into a local property tax for collection by the Revenue Commissioners. An annual interest charge of 8% per annum applies to late payments of the property tax. This will be a massive blow for many families. Sinn Féin and others who were equivocal about whether people should pay the tax must bear some of the responsibility for this.

See this speech in context