Darragh O'Brien (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Excellent, the Minister of State with responsibility for the issue.

In recent weeks I have asked the Leader to arrange a debate on what the Government calls the local property tax which, as we all know, is not a local property tax because any local authority which has worked out its budget for this year knows that zero euro of the money collected in each area will go to the local authorities. I gave the example of Fingal County Council, in which area €40 million will be collected from citizens but zero euro will go to the council. Will the Minister for Finance, Deputy Michael Noonan, come to the House in due course to explain why this is the case and the tax was sold as a local property tax when it is not?

There has been criticism, although not of the Leader, of the business we have conducted in the House since the start of the year in terms of legislation. There has also been a lack of legislation in the Dáil. It seems the wheels of government have ground to an absolute standstill. How many items of legislation has the Government introduced in either House or published since we returned in early January? I hope there will not be a glut of legislation at the end of the session coming up to Easter. The Leader was very helpful in this regard towards the end of the last session. It may be useful for a message to go from the Seanad to the Dáil and the Chief Whip's office to examine what has been done so far this year, which is precious little. Only one item of legislation has been introduced in either House since January. Will the Leader confirm that this is the case? If it is, we are obviously not ordering or scheduling business correctly in either House.

The Irish Independent carries a report this morning on Irish Water. Yesterday the Leader responded to the call made by Senator Fidelma Healy Eames for a debate on Irish Water, on which we had a very decent debate with the Minister of State, Deputy Fergus O'Dowd, although it was only one hour long and each Senator only had five minutes to speak. I asked a number of questions. but the question every citizen is asking is how much he or she will pay. I have learned from the report in the Irish Independent today that the Government will receive a consultation paper in April which will outline the proposed structure of the tariffs and the charges per household and apartment and the details of the proposed charges. The paper will be with the Government in April, but, according to the report in the newspaper, it does not intend to let the people know what the proposed charges will be until June. Is this true? I have a conspiratorial mind and it occurs to me that the local and European elections will take place on 23 May. Is this why the Government will receive a report and know the proposed charges in April but will not let the punters know until June?