David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein)

I welcome an Teachta Boyd Barrett back to the House. His return is great news.

Workers and families in this State are under savage pressure. They are being hit from every direction: soaring rents, sky-high energy bills, rip-off groceries, childcare that costs more than a mortgage, and insurance premiums that are through the roof. Yesterday’s Future Forty report from the Department of Finance clearly sets out how housing costs have skyrocketed in line with a cost of living that has spun out of control. Everywhere people turn, there is another bill, another squeeze, another hit. Now, as we head into Christmas, what does the Government do? It hikes up the local property tax. In the middle of a cost-of-living crisis, when people are counting every euro and every cent, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael decide to take more. This is a tax on the family home. It is not a tax on wealth or greed; it is a tax on ordinary people, including workers, pensioners and families, who are doing their best to get by. This one is on the Government, including the Minister for Finance, because it changed the law. The Minister widened the bands by just 20%, even though he knows house prices have shot up by 30% to 40% across most of the State. That is what is driving families into higher bands and costing them hundreds of euro.

The reality on the ground makes an absolute mockery of the claim of the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, that only 5% of households would be affected by the band changes. Families in Waterford, Cork, Dublin, Louth and elsewhere all over the State are getting revaluation notices that claim otherwise. They feel angry, let down and tired of being bled dry. It is clear that the Minister's figure is not just wrong; it is wildly wrong. The number of households hit will be far higher than the Minister for Finance says, and his attempt to say otherwise is to take people for fools. They are not having it, because right now those same families are sitting at kitchen tables asking which bill to skip this month, be it the electricity bill, the rent or the groceries bill. The Minister came along and hiked up the local property tax. No sooner was the ink dry on a budget that left workers high and dry than the Government was back again heaping more pressure on struggling families. It handed out massive tax cuts and breaks to developers, banks and landlords and it gave nothing to ordinary workers to help them to make ends meet. Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, as always, found room for the vested interests but not for the people who keep this country running. The Government had choices, of course, but it made all the wrong ones. It scrapped the energy credits that helped families to heat their homes; it raised student fees, making it harder for young people to stay in education; it hiked petrol and diesel, driving up the cost of getting to work or bringing kids to school; and it increased tolls, punishing commuters. Now, on top of all that, it hikes up the local property tax. That is not leadership; that is putting the wealthy and the golden circles first. The Minister for public expenditure can spin it whatever way he likes, and so can the Minister for Finance, but when these bills land through the door, people will see clearly that, again, Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil are taking more from those who have least. The Government is taxing the family home when families are deciding which bill to skip. It is wrong, it is unjust, and it has to stop.

People have had enough of a Government that says one thing and does the opposite, and talks about helping families but quietly signs off on measures that hike up charges. It had a choice between standing with workers and households and squeezing them further. It chose to squeeze them further. The Minister and I know it does not have to be this way. He does not have to increase the local property tax. No parent, pensioner or worker should have to pay more on their family home. I am asking the Minister to do the right thing: stop these hikes and stop hammering working families.

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