John Crown (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Many of us who are new to politics had a rather unceremonial declaration of our political naivety this afternoon in the Social Welfare Bill and it has probably hardened our rhetoric somewhat. This idea is daft. It is straight out of Monty Python. There is a great scene in Monty Python where the black knight is on the bridge and he is charging everybody tax to cross it. This measure reminds me of that.

Why do we have tax? We have tax for two reasons. First, to fund essential social and public services and, second, as a form of wealth redistribution, and I support both of those aims. The principle of tax should be that it is fair. If one has a lot one gives some; if one is in trouble, society helps one with the tax that others have given. That is the way it should work. What we have here is a highly selective asset tax. People have identified that there are assets such as yachts, and not many people have yachts, that should be taxed but many people have stamp collections, coin collections, furniture, clothes, toys, pets and cars, although we tax cars. Why is it that of all these things there is one asset that at this point in the history of this country is a liability?