Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Minister for Finance failed to acknowledge that the rates in the North cover such services as education, including school books, transport and meals, fire services, emergency services, health care, social services, roads with no tolls, waste collection, water, sewerage, including septic tank desludging, and leisure and recreational facilities. In this State, on the other hand, householders have to pay up to three times for some of these services, first through income tax, then through the family home tax and finally through local charges.

The Government is intent on forcing people, particularly low and middle-income families, to pay for this recession. It has failed utterly to ensure the pain is shared, instead heaping it on those least able to bear it, people who played no part in causing the economic crisis. After two and a half years in office, the Government's mantra of blaming the Fianna Fáil Party is beginning to wear thin.

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