Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)

Mar a dúirt mé, tá an Rialtas ag cur na cánach seo ar achan teach ar fud an Stáit agus go leor i gcruachás ó thaobh costas de. The Minister rightly made the point that if you abolish the local property tax, then you have to provide the money to the local authorities. He gave a figure of €600 million. We have shown the Minister time and time again where that €600 million can be generated, but they are political choices too and I respect the fact that Fine Gael does not want to do those political choices. It does not want to introduce a third rate of tax that would apply to individual income above €140,000. It does not want to go after gold-plated pensions that would see people who have pension pots in excess of €1.5 million taxed appropriately. They are the choices. The choice is that some people in my county will have to pay double the local property tax. Everybody else will have to pay a little bit more. They are the wrong choices, in my view, and for those reasons, I am pressing the amendment.

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