Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

These amendments are grouped. Some of the sections it is proposed to amend are already contained within this new legislation, but a new section extends the boundary beyond an acre. I am sure the Government will have valid reasons to explain why that is important. Normally, though, when ample time is afforded to consider legislation and pre-legislative scrutiny is undertaken in a proper way in committee, we would be able to tease out some of the language in this legislation and consider its text. I would like to do the same here, because there are aspects of the language used in this legislation which it would be important to tease out. However, we have not been afforded that opportunity.

The Joint Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach, of which I have been a member for some years, was in the middle of pre-legislative scrutiny of this Bill. Earlier today, we received submissions from local authorities and from experts in the field who have written a report on the legislation which considers aspects such as the equalisation fund and the potential impact of the local property tax. That process has been trumped now because the Government has decided to ram through this legislation. It has decided to do that because it has not got its own act together. I must say that, because the Opposition has facilitated exemptions from pre-legislative scrutiny on several occasions in respect of Covid-19-related Bills. This is not, however, a Covid-19-related Bill. This legislation concerns the local property tax. It is an issue which was supposed to have been examined many years ago and the revaluation date has been deferred repeatedly. This is not an issue, therefore, which has sprung up and taken the Minister by surprise.

We are sitting here now at a quarter past midnight dealing with all sections and all Stages of this Bill. The Joint Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach was meant to be continuing its pre-legislative scrutiny, but the Bill is being rammed through now for only one reason and that is because the Minister and his Department have not done the preparation necessary to afford the Oireachtas and its members the opportunity to scrutinise this Bill properly. Therefore, the amendments before us need proper scrutiny of their texts and implications. I refer to implications such as those for buildings, for example. I refer specifically to farm buildings, where there might be several outsheds not used for farming purposes. Will those buildings be brought within the scope of this legislation? What will happen to larger properties with acreage? I would like to have teased out questions such as those. Unfortunately, we are unlikely to get to all these amendments and to be able to consider them properly because we are trying to save time.

See this speech in context