Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)

Gabhaim buíochas leis an Leas-Cheann Comhairle as ucht an deis labhairt ar an ábhar seo. Cuireann muid in éadan na cánach maoine tithíochta seo. Tá muid ina éadan go huile is go hiomlán. Achan bhliain, léiríonn muid an dóigh le deireadh a chur leis an cháin seo. Is é an rud atá sa Bhille atá os comhair an Tí anocht ag teacht ó Fhianna Fáil, Fine Gael agus na Neamhspleáigh atá ag tabhairt tacaíochta don Rialtas ná go n-ardófar an cháin seo ar mhuintir na tíre. Níl aon teach sa tír seo a fheicfidh an cháin ag dul in ísle. Rachaidh sí in airde d’achan ceann acu. Tá gach ceann de na bands ag dul suas. De bharr go bhfuil an costas tithíochta ag dul in airde faoin Rialtas seo, beidh cuid acu á ndíol ag leibhéal níos airde.

Sinn Féin opposed the local property tax in every year, as the Minister well knows. We account for phasing out this local property tax. We present the Government with an alternative way of doing things and it rejects that every time. It is a way of scrapping the property tax without costing local authorities any revenue.

There is a fairer way to tax. Sinn Féin is committed to taxing wealth to reduce the burden on ordinary workers and families in delivering high-quality infrastructure and public services that are so badly needed right across our State. Despite the family home being turned into a financial asset by successive Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael Governments, the family home should not be treated in the way that it is by this Government in terms in wealth. For example, many of these homes have mortgages and some were in negative equity for many years, yet the Government looked at it as just simple wealth and an item that could be taxed. Sinn Féin believes in taxing wealth but one has to recognise that the family home has a particular position in the Irish State. It should be on net wealth that we tax, not tax where there are mortgages that are equivalent or similar to the amount of value that is in the property.

Some argue, as the Government has, that the way to tax wealth is to go after the family home. We completely disagree. Taxing real wealth is not easy but it is what we truly need. Lobbing a tax on the family home is just a simple cop-out and is what we have seen from Government after Government in recent years.

For many, it does not matter what the family home is worth because they are not selling it. It is a necessity of life. It is where they live and where they bring up their children. I need to be careful with my language here but just look at what Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have done with the family home. It is like Trump looking at Gaza and he just sees real estate. The Minister looks at people's homes, the place where they bring up their families, and he asks how he can squeeze those families and how much money can he get out of them. That family does not care if their home was €200,000 five years ago and is now valued at €300,000 today. It is where they are raising their family and where they have scrimped and saved to be able to purchase or build the home in the first instance, yet the Government just sees it as a cash cow to be taxed. Under this proposal, every single house in the State will end up paying more tax.

The reality is this Government has pushed us in a direction of the financialisation and commoditisation of homes. It has taken what is a necessity - what should be a right - and transformed it into an asset and made it out with winners and losers. Its failed housing policy has pushed up prices higher and higher right across the State. That has not been to the benefit of ordinary workers who just want a home to live in, but of the Government’s friends who keep it in high places. It has benefited the developers, bankers and investment funds, and the Government’s answer is to tax ordinary workers every single time. The irony is not lost on those workers that, on the day the Minister has announced that every house in the State will have to pay more tax, be it €500 or €250, it makes no difference, he has also announced he is giving bankers bonuses and bumper salaries. That is what this Government stands for. For the family that lives beside me in west Donegal or the family that lives beside Deputy Gould down in Cork who are scrimping and saving and going to the credit union to try to pay for the recent bills, such as the electricity bill, the Minister has just handed them a higher bill on their property. And what has he handed the CEOs of the banks in this State? He has handed them bonuses – pay that now goes above €500,000 – and in doing so he has lost the State €5 billion. Never has a finance Minister in all my time lost so much money for the State. If he had just held onto the shares in AIB, we would be €5 billion better off today. Oh my God, that has happened under prudent Paschal, the fellow who will not give the increases we need for disability payments, special needs allowances or those who needed the additional support of one-off energy credits this winter, but when it comes to bankers’ bonuses, it is a case of “Come knock on my door, it is a free for all”. That is what Fine Gael does, definitely when it has Fianna Fáil in government with it.

We are in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis. People are struggling to put or keep a roof over their heads. People are struggling with the cost of childcare. The Government promised that, within its first 100 days, it would provide a roadmap for delivering €10-a-day childcare, which is another promise it has failed to deliver. People are screwed over by high energy bills, among the highest in Europe, and the Government sits idly by, yet its priority is to make sure every single home pays a bit more local property tax. There is simply no let up for people.

The Government will tell us it can do nothing about inflation but it forgets to say that it is going to raise the cost of local property tax, petrol, diesel, home heating oil and gas because the Government controls a lot of prices in this State. This is another example of how it is screwing people over again royally. What we should be doing is abolishing local property tax and not increasing it, regardless of whether that increase is €5 or €250. That is what is required in this legislation. We will table an amendment to bring that about.

The Minister spoke about revaluation. You would swear he was doing us a favour here and trying to soften the cough because of the revaluation. The revaluation in the local property tax is a political choice by the Government. It does not need to happen. The revaluation does not need to happen and we should not have it in the first place.

We should abolish this tax. It reflects the failures of Government in respect of housing policy.

Let us look at the numbers. The Minister told us the revaluation will happen in November this year. However, he said that until last year house prices had increased by 23%. They are still increasing, by the way. Therefore, by the time the revaluation takes place, prices will be above that threshold. In Donegal, prices have increased by 35%, but the bands only increased by 20%, because the Minister needs his little squeeze on households. The Government needs to squeeze householders a little bit more, while the bankers get bonuses and pay of over half a million euro because that is what Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael Governments do.

I will hand it to the two parties; they are bloody consistent. When it comes the buddy móra in this country, there is always a nice listening ear. Last week, I asked the Minister's party leader if he does not listen to the people who are struggling and find it difficult to pay for a basket of groceries at the end of the week. Does the Minister not listen to the families who are crippled with a second mortgage in childcare costs or are screwed over by petrol and diesel prices and the carbon taxes that increase every year and which the Government plans to increase further? The Government then comes along with a proposal that increases taxes.

The Minister can dress this up all he wants. The reality is that the local property tax for a person in my county relates to a property worth €190,000 in 2021. Property values in Donegal have increased by 30% since that time. The current price is €247,000. People in Donegal will pay another €140, not another €5, in property tax. That is what the Government is delivering to people in my constituency. It is absolutely wrong in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis and, indeed, at any time. We should abolish the local property tax. That is what Sinn Féin is committed to and will do. That is the type of amendment we will bring forward to the Bill.

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