Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

We will all be glad to get back to the Dáil Chamber in Leinster House where we can all see each other better at such a late hour.

Deputy Lawless made a very articulate contribution on how the process works in his local authority, which is good. I am sure councillors were doing what he described before the introduction of the local property tax, providing services such as surfacing roads and ensuring amenities were available to local communities. I know that with my own council and across the board, particularly with those 21 councils depending on the equalisation fund, the grants that had been available were reduced in an amount equal to the property tax collected. That is the reality of what happened.

The legislation we are discussing tonight increases the taxation on 770,000 homes. It is important to remember that, as the line being worked out by the Government is that the majority of households will not see an increase. That is absolutely true. Only 11% of households are estimated to see a decrease and I am sure those people will welcome it. There will be 670,000 households that will see an increase in the local property tax, with another 100,000 households also taken into the scope. It is not a small amount of additional taxation that is to be levied on households.

For some, €100 here or €200 there is not much but some others could be struggling to keep the roof over their own head. They could be struggling to keep bread in the cupboards and food on the table. There are matters we will come to later relating to deferrals and the interest that accumulates and so on but I want to get to the substance of the legislation. This goes to the point I made earlier.

What is happening tonight is absolutely appalling. The Minister knows I engage with pre-legislative scrutiny for Bills because even when one supports legislation - we do not support this Bill - it is important to tease out aspects of that legislation so the record will always stand in what was considered and meant by a certain element or section. Last night, a completely unrelated Bill passed through this House and I had reason to look at Second Stage, Committee Stage and Report Stages in both the Dáil and the Seanad because it is where we see the aspects teased out. All too often, sections are brushed over rather than properly considered.

In my opening contribution I stated that the definition in this section is very similar to what was in the original Bill. The main change relates to acreage. As the Minister mentioned, the area is still one acre but it is not the acre that immediately surrounds the house and it will be calculated excluding the footprint of the property in question. There has been a change. The earlier elements, relating to land, outhouses, sheds, etc., are now phrased in a different way. The original 2012 Act dealt with all of this in a simple definition of residential property.

There is a reason for this and I ask the Minister to outline to the Dáil that reason. We can all guess or second-guess why the Revenue Commissioners or the Department have suggested there must be a change to the local property tax. It would have been easy to put in the definition again but there is now a different way of calculating the tax. It is not now just the immediate acre around the house and this is to allow other property to be captured, such as a garden shed or outhouse, that may be outside the vicinity. It is therefore a way of increasing the level of taxation on a home. I would like to hear from the Minister on this, as we would normally do in pre-legislative scrutiny. We were not given the opportunity to tease this out in a wider way but what was the rationale behind this change?

See this speech in context