Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

-----which is not a view I would take. The President can refer a Bill to the Supreme Court, but that is a different matter.

For whatever reason, the property tax managed to make its way into this debate with both Deputies Wallace and Murphy saying the Government did not have a mandate to introduce a property tax. That is not quite true. A property tax, albeit in the form of a site valuation charge, was in page 18 of the Labour Party manifesto. It is from this that our mandate for the property tax derives, and my party's manifesto included a commitment to introduce water metering and water charges. It is not correct to say, therefore, that we do not have a mandate to do what we have done in regard to both of those items.

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