Dáil debates

Wednesday, 14 July 2021

Finance (Local Property Tax) (Amendment) Bill 2021: Committee and Remaining Stages

 

10:37 pm

Photo of Michael Healy-RaeMichael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I have grave concerns with this local property tax, and I have studied it greatly. My colleagues in the Rural Independent Group share these concerns. Many people living in rural areas may have as part of their dwelling an outhouse, such as a garage or a shed, that they may have built when they were starting out and then improved over the years. Now, those people are faced with the prospect of an improved shed, which could be a turf shed with parts of it used for other purposes such as for timber or storage, being looked upon as an asset and a further tax being faced. That is wrong. It is totally wrong.

If we are talking about people doing up the curtilage of their family homes, where they improve the yard and develop outhouses, for example, and if those people are now going to be taxed in that regard, then that is another attack on rural Ireland. It is another attack on rural dwellers. It is another attack on people who have an awful job in first getting planning permission and then in passing percolation tests, because the bar is continually being raised. It is a fact that it is much more cumbersome, awkward and troublesome for those people to clear out their sites, put in their own treatment system, provide their own water and possibly have to pay money to get the ESB connection to supply electricity to that location to enable them to live in the countryside.

It is exactly that which we should be encouraging. We should be encouraging people to keep the lights on in the rural areas and keep life and people living in those areas. The Minister, though, is now hitting those people with a tax on the sheds, outhouses or buildings constructed on the curtilage of their land. I object to that in the strongest possible terms. My colleagues in the Rural Independent Group object to that very strongly as well.

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