Gerard Craughwell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I believe that in his speech today, he will announce the living in Dublin allowance and then we will not care about property tax, we will be very happy to pay it.

I do not know what people were thinking of when they based the tax on the value of properties. A four-bedroom, semi-detached house in Leopardstown in Dublin had a value of €969,000 before the crash. Immediately after the crash, it had a value of €360,000. If I live in that house, on which value should I pay the tax? Where does the valuation come in there? What lunatic put the value of the property as the basis for tax? I cannot really support the Fianna Fáil motion and am inclined to go along with Senator Norris and say let us just scrap the tax. It is coming to the stage where a living in Dublin allowance needs to be introduced for public servants, gardaí and teachers, who are on fixed incomes.As Senator Norris pointed out, not only is one being hit with property tax one is also paying for the bin service. We rarely see the grass being cut in housing estates now even though we pay for it. When we were not paying for it directly through property tax it was being cut once a month. Now it is rarely done, perhaps once every six weeks or the like. The financial emergency measures in the public interest, FEMPI, legislation is still in place. Senator Norris referred to the removal of the long service increment, which sadly I would not qualify for if it was available. The Government has taken a significant amount of money from public servants over the last number of years. It has started to give some of it back, but we are a very long way from where we were in 2008.

Property tax is going up because the value of property is going up again. The four-bedroom, semi-detached house I referred to that dropped to €360,000 is now priced at €700,000. Yes, the economy is booming. The last Government did a great job on the backs of the citizens of the State. The country recovered. That recovery facilitated the vulture funds mentioned by Senators Norris and Conway-Walsh. They are enjoying all the benefits, but the workers are still paying and paying hard.

As regards the current system of property tax, I understand that Fine Gael has asked Fianna Fáil to agree to continue the little relationship so the Government can survive for another two years. If Fianna Fáil is happy to continue with the love affair it will all be hunky-dory for a while, but Fianna Fáil could make it part of the deal for the love affair that it has some input into property tax. That would be a good way to start. Senator Boyhan said that this will be an election issue. There are so many things that will be election issues I would not wish to go near an election at present. Property tax, health, education and security are among them.

Who wrote the Government's amendment? Who wrote that the local property tax is fair and equitable? Were they trying to pull a fast one? It is hilarious to say it is fair and equitable. My poor old semi-detached house, indeed my dog's kennel, has a higher property tax rating than some of my relations' houses down the country. When the Minister of State does the review he should just scrap the property tax and bring forward something more equitable.