Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)

I thank the Ceann Comhairle for the opportunity to respond. I never dismissed the fact it will be difficult for some people - indeed for many people - to pay more. Every time I have spoken on this legislation, including this evening, I have acknowledged repeatedly that while the increase over a year is 5% or 6%, which in cash terms for many people will be €20 to €23, for higher value homes it will be more than that. I have acknowledged there are many people for whom that additional amount will be hard to find. I have never dismissed it.

The argument I am making is to ask people to pay that bit more each year to allow us to have more money available for the public services they want to see improved. The changes we are making to local property tax here are below the rate of increase in the value of homes in recent years. We have done that by widening the bands again and by cutting the rate. Deputy Doherty said I was dismissing that.

I am not dismissing it for a moment but I am making the point that the additional money we are collecting here will be used on public services that our country wants to see improved.

On the point I made regarding people not being convinced by the arguments Deputy Doherty had to be making, I should have made clear that I meant that on a party basis rather than him. Fair play to him, the number of votes he got reflects the passion he has - that he is right to have - the expertise he has and the work he does within his constituency. However, I made the point, and I will make it again, that Sinn Féin was quite rare among Opposition parties across 2024 and 2025 at a time when inflation was so high that it did not get into Government. There are many different reasons why. I think there are people who understand, and I making the case to them, that the taxes we collect play a very valuable role in funding the public services our country wants. There are no easy answers available regarding how the abolition of the local property tax would be funded. The answers are not easy and we have already had a debate on it. I have made counterarguments to the different points the Deputy has made.

Regarding the investment funds, this is an issue the Deputy and I have debated over many years but we have seen that apartment construction decreased very rapidly last year and we need savings, pensions and capital in other parts of the world to play a role in building more apartments in Ireland. That is why we have a taxation structure in place to do that but even with that in place we saw in the second half of last year that the number of new homes, new apartments, that were being built was way below what we know our country needs.

On the points Deputy McGrath made regarding the issues in Tipperary, and the very serious issue he raised, I put it back to him and ask if those problems would be any easier to solve if we remove funding from local authorities. That, in effect, is what the abolition of the local property tax would do. He would then say back to me that we could find that money in other ways and I am sure he has ideas in which that could happen. At that point, I would argue to him that the other ways of raising €600 million would have effects that I believe would not be good for our economy or our country in the long run.

Those are the points I would make back to the charges and critiques that have been made there. I emphasise again that I know asking people to pay more at a time in which the effect of inflation is still felt will be difficult for many, but we have made significant changes to the local property tax regime for the second time since it was introduced to try to help, at least for some, those increases to be affordable. We are using all of the money that is being collected here to pay for public services that our country wants.

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