Paul Daly (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I second the motion. I agree wholeheartedly with everything Senator Horkan said. As the Minister of State comes from an agricultural background, I am sure he will concur with this. There is a saying in our industry about people being asset rich, but yet living on the breadline. A farmer can have a farm that is worth a lot of money, but if it is their home, they cannot realise any income from that. While they can be asset rich and end up with a large property tax, which will be even larger after the revaluation in 2019, it does not necessarily mean they have the ability to pay. This must be taken into consideration and should have been from the outset.

As Senator Horkan has said, we are not looking for abolition or any major change. We are looking for address of the system of how property tax is administered after the review. While Senator Horkan concentrated on Dublin, property prices all over the country have risen. For people, who were in negative equity whose personal circumstances may have changed during the crash and experienced periods of unemployment or may still be unemployed, there is no consideration as to whether they can pay, irrespective of the value of the house in which they live. They may have a very large mortgage or may be in negative equity. They may have inherited a house that is worth a lot of money and valuable when it comes to taxation purposes but it does not realise any income to them. It is a roof they need over their head. People will not sell a house and downsize just for the purposes of property tax and it may not be feasible for them. They may not be able to move from the area in which they live and there can be many different circumstances that hinder that happening.

The motion asks the Government to look at the system.Senator Horkan did not mention one thing that I think is a valuable argument for this motion. I refer to the property tax of landlords, whether they are incidental or professional. When they get hit with the extra property tax, it will be filtered down to their tenants. It will be paid, in essence, by a sector we are all defending daily because of the crippling effect of rent. This can only have one outcome. The property owner will not pay the extra property tax. They will pass on their increased bills, and that will hit a sector of the community that is already crippled. It includes the student rental sector and student rents that we discussed recently. It needs to looked at, distributed more evenly and applied to people who can afford to pay. That is the key point of my input today.

We must look at the ability to pay because the value of a property has no bearing on income or the ability to pay the bill when it comes. Escalating property prices mean the bills are only going to go one way. The Bill was well buttered up when it was introduced initially. People in rural areas bought into it and thought it was a great idea. They believed it would provide street lighting and footpaths outside their houses. The selling point was that all income from the tax would be spent locally; instead, it was redistributed in many instances to other areas. There was no additional income to the local authority because central government deducted its payment to the local authorities by almost an equivalent amount.