Coalition yet to decide on taking property tax from wages

THE TAOISEACH has refused to be drawn on reports that the incoming property tax will be deducted from PAYE workers’ wages.

Enda Kenny said the report of a working group, chaired by former civil servant Don Thornhill, had been sent to Minister for the Environment, Phil Hogan.

The Minister, he said, had a responsibility and a duty to reflect on the issues raised in it and bring a memo to Government.

“When the memo comes to Government, it will make a decision in its own time,” Mr Kenny added.

Dún Laoghaire People Before Profit TD Richard Boyd Barrett said that at the weekend even Labour backbenchers started to get the jitters when they heard the suggestion the Government was circumventing the boycott campaign by taking the property tax directly from people’s pay packets.

“This suggestion blows apart the Government claim that the planned property charge has anything to do with equity or fairness,” he added. “It is just another tax on workers.”

Mr Boyd Barrett said that on July 18th, when the Dáil is scheduled to adjourn for the summer recess, a national demonstration called by the campaign against the household and water charges would take place outside Leinster House.

“Why does the Taoiseach not save thousands of ordinary people the trouble of buying bus and train tickets to Dublin on that date by telling them he is abandoning the household charge or any property charge aimed at low and middle-income families?” he asked.

Mr Kenny said Mr Boyd Barrett should be ashamed that, as a legislator, he was encouraging people to break the law.

Mr Boyd Barrett said that when laws were unjust, people such as Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King understood it was justified and legitimate to resist.

Mr Kenny said he was not sure what tablets Mr Boyd Barrett had taken, “but for him to equate himself or put himself in the mix with Gandhi and Martin Luther King is a bridge too far”.

Later, Sinn Féin environment spokesman Brian Stanley moved a Private Members’ Bill to repeal the household charge.

“We believe that the charge is unjust and unworkable and will lead to a financial crisis for local authorities and will bring further hardship to low and middle-income families,” he said.

Mr Stanley claimed the charge was grossly unfair because it penalised those on low incomes. “The millionaire will pay the same as the pensioner and the Taoiseach will pay the same as the lone parent who has had benefits cut.”

Moving the Bill, Mr Stanley said the charge was introduced because the Government cut funding to local authorities.

Minister of State for the Environment Fergus O’Dowd said Sinn Féin was proposing the repeal of a measure that had so far raised more than €94.5 million.

“This is a very significant amount of money in today’s challenging financial circumstances, an amount that is absolutely crucial to the continued funding of local government and the provision of essential local services,” he added.

Mr O’Dowd said the legislation was enacted relatively recently by the Oireachtas and there was no basis or justification for its repeal.

“Given international events, and continuing uncertainty in the international economy, many will find it simply incomprehensible that Deputy Stanley and Sinn Féin can make this proposal at this time,” he added.