Denis Landy (Labour)

With regard to the Bill, I welcome the waivers and exemptions that have been included, which, as things stand at the moment, will cover 250,000 households. However, I agree with Senator Ó Domhnaill, who outlined the situation with regard to other sectors of society which do need to be considered with a view to granting them exemptions. The Minister of State is from an urban area. Let us take, for example, a person living in a purchased local authority house who is now unemployed due to the economic downturn, or a pensioner living on his or her own. Those people, as the legislation stands, will be liable for this property tax. I ask the Minister of State to reconsider these groups because I believe they will be discriminated against. A person who lives in a local authority estate and has made an effort to purchase his or her own house during his or her working life will have to pay the charge, while his or her next door neighbour who did not choose to purchase the house will be exempted.

It is estimated that approximately €160 million will be collected from this charge if it is collected in its entirety. Can the Minister of State give us an outline of how this will be disbursed among local authorities? Will it be based on the collection rates within the various local authority areas or will it be distributed with no consideration to that? This is important because some areas will have high collection rates while others will not.

With regard to the payment methods that are outlined in the legislation, I welcome the introduction of instalment payments, which is very important. I also welcome the fact that people can pay online. However, in rural Ireland, people traditionally use the post office to pay practically everything. I ask the Minister of State to consider contracting An Post to provide payment cards, as it does for other payments such as local authority rents. This should be explored with An Post, particularly in view of the fact that rural post offices are under pressure in cases in which the commercial business does not justify the doors being kept open. This would assist An Post in providing a service that it is currently providing, in some cases, at a loss.

I would also like some information about the local government management agency, LGMA, which will be paid to administer this service on behalf of the Government and local authorities. Will it be paid based on the administration costs or based on the amount of money it collects? In other words, will there be a pro rata payment on a percentage basis?

Unfinished housing estates are given specific mention among the exemptions. Who will actually decide whether a housing estate is unfinished? Will it be based on the list that has already been drawn up by the former Minister of State with responsibility for housing, Deputy Penrose, or will people be able to claim inability to pay because their housing estates are not finished? Will the housing estate be required to be taken in charge by the local authority? The taking in charge of an estate by the local authority is a definitive indication that the estate is completed, because it is not actually completed until such time as all the services within the estate have been checked, have been seen to work correctly and have been confirmed as operational. Residents could claim that their estates are unfinished, so we need some clarity in this regard before we move any further.

I welcome the fact that the Department is having discussions with the CCMA about this legislation and how it will be implemented when we move from a flat rate to a full rate of payment that is based on the actual value of a house. The sooner that is introduced, the better. I agree with some media reports that both a millionaire and a householder on low income will be charged the €100. That is not the basis of any property tax in Europe or throughout the world, so the sooner we have the new system, the better.

The Minister referred to negotiations with the County and City Managers Association, CCMA. However, as I pointed out about four times in this House, the local authority members' representative bodies, such as the Local Authority Members Association, LAMA, the Association of County and City Councils, ACCC, and the Association of Municipal Authorities of Ireland, AMAI, have been left out of the loop in these negotiations. They are the people who make the difficult decisions. The Minister said that local authority budgets are due to be passed. My local authority, South Tipperary County Council, is drawing up its budget on Monday. It is the elected representatives who pass the budget and make the hard decisions, yet all the Departments negotiate with the CCMA. There are no negotiations on these matters with the elected representatives or their associations. I have suggested to the Minister, Deputy Phil Hogan, the Minister of State, Deputy McEntee, and other Ministers that they negotiate with the representatives of the county, city and town councillors who will be asked to implement these charges.