Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 29:

In page 130, between lines 6 and 7, to insert the following: “Report on local property tax

74.Within 6 months of the passing of this Act, the Minister shall produce a report on the local property tax and its implications for funding for local authorities.”.

The property tax is still a live issue and nobody should fool themselves politically about that fact. The feeling is that once the general election is out of the way, the property tax will only go in one direction and that is up, and that the Government has been holding off on the revaluation and increases that will follow because it knows how politically damaging it would be to increase it, as would have had to be the case if the original plan for the tax had been followed through. The Government has backed away from that because it knows how regressive people feel it is. It may dispute this, but it is a fact.

The property tax replaced a progressive model of funding for local government with a regressive form of funding. When it was introduced, it was suggested that was not what was happening, and that the introduction of a property tax would lead to better local services and more funding for local government. Those of us who opposed it always felt that was a nonsense, but what we said has turned out to the case. There has not been an extra cent for local government. Far from there being more money for some local authority budgets, in Dublin, notably Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council and Dublin City Council, budgets are being cut.

The Fianna Fáil, Green Party, Labour Party and Social Democrats alliance now controlling Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council cut the budget for retrofitting, which we should be doing more of, as well as the environmental awareness and community grants budgets, while increasing rates for small businesses and parking charges. One would have thought the council had more money given the property tax, but it has less because for every cent it collected in property tax was offset against central government funding.

The Government replaced a progressive tax, which was centrally funded through income-related tax, with a tax on the family home that has nothing to do with a person's income and ability to pay. We get nothing for that additional burden. I do not always agree with Owen Keegan by any stretch of the imagination, but he made that point in respect of Dublin City Council's budget. The rationale put forward was bogus and the evidence now is that is the case. This will get worse on the other side of a general election at whatever point some sort of revaluation or reconfiguration of the property tax takes place. That would be unfair and totally unjustifiable.

I am sure that in many parts of the country, as in my area, the value of people's houses has absolutely nothing to do with their wealth or income. It may be that the two correlate and some people have houses that are worth a lot while also earning a lot of money, but there is no automatic or necessary connection between the two. Many council houses in my area that people bought are now, through no fault of theirs, worth a fortune because no other council houses have been built since. Any kind of house is now worth a fortune, but that bears no relationship to the income of those in them and their ability to pay. People living in such houses are often on very low incomes. The system is not fair and has not done anything to improve funding for local government and the services that flow from it.

The evidence from some of the council budgets I have mentioned is that the situation is getting worse in terms of local government funding. That is my case for saying that we need a more progressive form of funding for local government, which is not based on the value of a property over which people have absolutely no control and bears no relation to their ability to pay.

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