Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

What is going on here is absolutely shameful. The nature of Report Stage means we can make a long first contribution but we are limited in not being able to make a third or fourth contribution and so cannot tease things out in the way we should as parliamentarians.

The Minister's amendments, and the proposed amendments to the amendments, are quite interesting. I have listened to the debate from different sides. I have listened to the Minister of State's initial contribution explaining what he is doing and I have listened to Opposition Deputies explain why they oppose it and why they have proposed amendments. The Minister might clarify something in his response. The local authority fund is made up of motor tax and Exchequer funding. When the Government introduced the local property tax, LPT, it dramatically reduced the Exchequer funding going into the local government fund. The LPT does not actually go into the local government fund as 80% is retained by the local authorities and the rest is recirculated, but it was introduced to reduce the Exchequer contribution to local authorities which was in turn done to reduce the current borrowing of the Government and the Exchequer deficit. Perhaps the Minister can confirm that that is, in fact, what happened. It would mean the statement by the Government when it introduced the local property tax was, to put it mildly, dishonest. Instead of telling people it was trying to reduce the Exchequer deficit, because the country cannot go on forever borrowing in the current account, and that it was raising new taxes with a property tax rather than taking it out of income tax, it tried to distract the public by giving the illusion that the local property tax meant more money for local authorities. Many people, believing the Government, fell for that one, which was quite shameful.

Irish Water is really Irish water and sewerage because it is water in and water out. This is a big change that has come in since this Government came to power as it was the first time paying for sewerage services had ever come up. The previous Minister, Phil Hogan, denied that would happen when we discussed the septic tank legislation. He utterly denied that people would be paying for water out and said clearly on Committee Stage that they would only pay for the water in. The Minister of State should check the record as he will find out I am right.

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