THE Government won a division on residential property tax (RPT) by 13 votes. A motion, passed by 67 votes to 54, noted the Government's commitment to review the tax in the context of a professional study on local government financing and endorsed the action taken in the 1995 Budget to reverse house value threshold reductions for the tax introduced in 1994.

During the debate, some Government speakers sided with the Opposition in criticising the tax. The Government tabled its motion in response to a Fianna Fail proposal to abolish the tax immediately.

Disputing the assertion that the lax was for rich people, Mr Michael McDowell (PD, Dublin South East) said that in his constituency two primary teachers living together in a terraced house and both working outside the home, could be well into the tax band.

"They are not the rich. They are ordinary people, working hard to try and improve their situation" he said. Mr McDowell added that the tax was "inequitable, mean minded and ideological" from the very beginning.

Ms Frances Fitzgerald (FG, Dublin South East) said that RPT was a "crude, anti family and anti Dublin tax". She was calling on the Fine Gael led Government to seriously question the future of the tax and she looked forward to the Minister for Finance's proposals in the January Budget.

Although Fianna Fail was now calling for the abolition of the tax, it was the party that had brought extra taxpayers into the RPT net. "My constituents might not like RPT, but I credit them with more intelligence than the opposition. They can see the difference between the soft words of a fancy advertising campaign today and the harsh actions of two years ago."

Urging that a perspective be maintained on the tax, the Minister for Equality and Law Reform, Mr Taylor, said it was a myth to claim that it was a Dublin tax.

The statistics showed that three quarters of RPT was paid by persons in Dublin city and county but the reasons for this were equally relevant to any capital city in the world.

"Most of a country's valuable residential properties are found in capital cities and income in capital cities tends to be higher. This means that in any national tax, based on market values, it is inevitable that persons in high value areas will pay a disproportionately higher proportion of the overall tax," he added.

"It is disingenuous to suggest that this means that the tax is unfair or biased when it must be accepted that the market values are the most equitable basis for assessment."

He said the Government had brought forward many improvements in personal and business taxation, which were in direct contradiction to the charges made by the opposition speakers.

Mr Alan Shatter (FG, Dublin South) said the tax was daft and should be abolished. It was unfair to people living in Dublin where house values had increased dramatically over the last 18 months.

Mr Brian Lenihan (FF, Dublin West) said that RPT was a form of double taxation on people who were already paying "through the nose in income tax.

Mr Seamus Brennan (FF, Dublin South) said it was nonsense to claim that RPT was a lax on property speculation. The way to deal with speculation was through proper management of the economy. RPT was a tax on the ordinary family home. "Our homes must be a tax free zone," he added.

Mr Pat Rabbitte, Minister of State to the Government, said that most of the estimated £13.5 million which would be raised through RPT this year would come from people whose incomes were well in excess of £40,000 a year and whose houses were worth substantially more than £125,000. These households did not comprise many of the people in our society who were at greatest risk of poverty - the old, young, ill or disabled.

"It is interesting to note that if the house value threshold for RPT were raised to £125,000 the number of people paying the tax would be almost halved while the yield would be reduced by about 10 per cent. Therefore, it is clear that most of the lax is in fact being paid by the wealthiest households.

"It is beginning to look as if the Opposition parties want to revert to the era of auction politics irrespective of considerations of equity or economic growth. Even the high minded PDs are prepared to drive Fianna Fail down this road using, in the process, the Fianna Fail leader, Deputy Ahern, who is a ventriloquist for PD policy."

He said the FF motion was probably the brainchild of Mr McCreevy, the party's spokesman on finance, who made no bones about his advocacy of the cause of the wealthiest in society and railed against what he called "the poverty industry".

Mr Rabbitte warned against the FF billboard campaign on RPT. A decade ago, that party ran a billboard campaign about declaring that "health cuts hurt the sick, the old and the handicapped". Once in office, they deepened the cuts and the plight of the old, sick and handicapped was swept under the carpet.

Mr McCreevy, concluding the debate, said that only one Government speaker, the Minister of State, Ms Avril Doyle, had advocated retaining RPT. If Government speakers were true to their views they would support the Fianna Fail motion.