Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I too am supporting this amendment which we have moved already. The property tax came in with all kinds of promises, and everything else, and all kinds of issues. There have been ongoing debates about the amount of property tax people are paying in Dublin, the value of the property and the money going to rural roads. The fact of the matter is it is not going anywhere. The amount of waste going on in all Departments is just shocking. Fair play is fine play with me any day of the week. It is impossible for people to build a house now in Dublin. That the Minister says affordable houses can cost €440,000 or so is crazy. We are going to have to look at this and evaluate it and have a proper, meaningful debate. Most of the legislation we have passed, including the climate Bill earlier today, is driving up the cost of building houses. All the materials for building, or many of them, are oil-based and timber-based or whatever.

The amendment is another totally regressive step and another noose around the necks of the country people. It is just not good enough. We have tried it here. I do not know what Fine Gael has against these people. The former Minister in this area, Phil Hogan, brought in the septic tank charge. He tried to demonise rural dwellers and portray them as polluters of the ground. The septic tank and the waste disposal system will be on the site. A minimum of 0.6 of an acre is needed now to build a house with a septic tank but they certainly will be in the curtilage and inside the 2.5 acres.

As to the property tax in Dublin, you have your services. Unlike in England, people must pay for the refuse but you have services. However, there are no services whatsoever in rural Ireland. A person must put in their own system - I am talking about existing houses here - and maintain it. By hell, people do maintain these systems because the last person in the country who wants to have a sewage system that is not working properly is the householder and their family. That horrible charge was put on those systems. Then there was what I called the "fiver Friday" scheme, where it was announced the charge would come down to €50 and we were told we would get a grant. Again, as Deputy Danny Healy-Rae said about the money for the local improvement schemes, there was nothing to support the grants. I do not know anyone in County Tipperary who got the grant. I think we did eight, ten or maybe 12 inspections per year. It was just a total hijack and another con job to try to portray the rural people as being dirty. In fact, the main problem, as has been proven up and down the country, if the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, or An Taisce wanted to see it, is the local authorities. An Taisce is on again tonight asking the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications not to accept the amendments. If An Taisce wanted to see it, it would find the real polluters are the local authorities, maybe not in every town and village but in the vast majority of them, because their systems are antiquated, not functioning properly and unfit for purpose. It is not the rural dwellers, because as I have said, they look after their own.

The idea now is to extend this tax to the curtilage and to outbuildings. On outbuildings, many of these houses may have been converted from detached houses and been covered with corrugated iron and they may have to have a well close by so there must be a pump house. Some people got grants to upgrade their well. It was not many but I know of a few who did. There was a grant scheme if a mains did not pass the house. If the person had a well then he or she got a grant to upgrade it, and rightly so. These outbuildings may be utility rooms or a garage for the car. Like it or not, a person cannot leave any kind of property outside, from the lawnmower to any kind of utensils, because of the roaming gangs who use the motorways. I will not attribute them to any particular place but they have great access to the country and they plunder, steal and rob, so everything must be secure. Now, if a person has a secure house, he or she is going to be penalised for it.

What kind of a vendetta has the Government against the people of rural Ireland? These are the plain people who build their own houses, have housed themselves, and pay their taxes, rates and everything. The Government will not let them drive because they cannot get a theory test. Drivers with learner plates have been penalised. Now it is hitting them again with all kinds of carbon taxes and as others have said, there are no public services. Why make this attack on rural dwellers? They are the plain people of Ireland and are good people and proud people. They did not ask to be housed by any local authority or government but did it themselves. Many of them got county council loans like I did myself when I built the house back in 1983 or 1984. I was glad to get it. Many of these people are still paying mortgages to have their houses. Their noble aspiration is to have a decent house for their family and themselves. If they have 2.5 acres they will be hoping to get a site for some of their family. When they go for the planning on that, they are hit with massive fees for it. You must get engineer's reports and waste water treatment plants. Lo and behold, if An Taisce hear you are at it, it will want you to get an environmental impact statement and an archaeological dig. It is victimisation. I will not use the word I used earlier but it is definitely segregation and mistreatment of rural dwellers. It is totally unacceptable in this day and age. One thing is piled on the other. The farmer cannot spread the slurry or the nitrogen or whatever else; instead, he must follow all the rules and regulations. Despite that, there are many towns, including 30 I could name in the south of my county, which have inadequate sewage treatment. Raw sewage is belching into our rivers, lakes and seas and here we are crucifying, penalising, victimising and stigmatising the people of rural Ireland.

It is a shocking indictment of the Government. I do not know who comes up with these ideas and drafts this legislation. I do not want to blame the drafters or the public officials but we must have fair play. As I have said, fair play is fine play with me but not this relentless attacking and undermining of the good people of rural Ireland. These people do not ask for a house, for free water or for anything. The Government should leave them alone. It should get off our backs. It should get the monkeys of An Taisce and the EPA off our backs, and have them look after what they should be looking after.

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