Mattie McGrath attacks rising costs, waste and rogue developments

and thanks for having me and look minister i'd rise to support this amendment here as well because it's a matter of choices and we can talk about the election and who got into government and who didn't and what results were but the fact is that we have a squeezed squeeze squeeze middle and your former leader was always talking about the men and women who get up in in the morning and go to work and they're particularly uh squeezed and with cost of living and i know it's about lots of soundings and i was at that committee meeting yesterday uh with yourself and minister chambers and and and the predictions for the future and the worries that are there with many many members and with all of us and with all families out there who are trying to send their children to school who are trying to pay the fees who are trying to pay the put food on the table and we're trying to pay the bills and stay above water and when they see the waste especially that carrying on in government and we've seen i'm not going to go into here but the waste all over the place and opw you name it and the children's hospital just just name it so people are at the pin of the collar especially ordinary people not talking about uh and you definitely refer to people on you know 100 200 000 they're well cushioned yes but the ordinary people can't afford this and these are the people that pay everything they pay their all their taxes and work and they pay for the kids go to college and they pay for school fees and they pay for across the board and the cost of medical insurance up up up up the cost of the inflation up up up and you have to make lots of sounds issue that there'll be no further um payments of of our supports for families to deal with the inflationary costs and you're putting on carbon taxes which i fundamentally oppose and making it more expensive for people this year as well and the people that i say um with all these things then what services do they get it's the problem we had the situation last year in the snow and they couldn't get an egg cup of salt so if they're getting something for these people have to house themselves they've housed themselves put their hands and got the mortgages of course maybe built the houses themselves or maybe um direct labor or whatever and pay the planning fees and development charges and pay everything so there mightn't be much different bands but it is a lot at 20 23 euro and what services and what support do they get from the state and what protections do they get from the state and which indulgence can't call them maybe uh i have a group at the moment uh people living in a lovely area outside clonmelanchine's grave and there's an illegal development taking place at this point time this minute against them machines have been seized by the guard they were illegal all kinds of uh developments going on and the people are powerless and around to me and deputy murphy and around everybody else and these are all decent people hardworking people some of them retired some of them sick you know in reaching old age and in all old reasonable old age and they want to live quietly and they have no protections from the state they're waiting for the council to do enforcement and that's taking a process while shoddy people can come in and do what they like and build and move on um um illegal um vehicles onto um accommodation onto the site in front of them lovely people that pay their taxes and pay and worked and support every charity that's ever asked of them support neighbors the spirit of the middle male so they are bewildered in how the powers that be can't apply to a legal development right in front of their noses can't be stopped and let's go through the process and when will they stop when they're worried for their children and the grandchildren with the activities going on so i i just um just be bewildered they're bewildered it's a small thing here you might say but fundamentally it's unfair and and we always have to debate about the property tax in dublin is much higher than below but the houses as we can see from the indexes and all the different reports that after everybody else house prices are going up and up and up that means the property tax in the bet every no matter what band you're in is going up so i am fundamentally opposed to and i think we need to look at legislation too to see if we could um have more powers for the local authorities to stop rogue developments taking place right in front of people's noses and they can't do a thing about it and we can't do a thing about it as public reps sad state thank you thank you deputy now minister thank you uh for uh the opportunity to respond back uh so firstly uh i never dismissed the fact that it will be difficult for some people uh for many people indeed to pay more never dismissed us every time i've spoken on this legislation included here this evening i've acknowledged uh repeatedly that while what the increase over a year is five or six percent which in cash terms for lots of people will be 20 23 euro for higher value homes it will be more than that and i have acknowledged that there are many people for whom that additional amount will be hard to find so i've never dismissed us what i'm making the argument for is asking people to pay that bit more each year in turn allows us to have more money available for public services that they want to see improved and in the changes that we are making in local property tax here they are below the rate of increase in the value of homes across recent years and we've done that by widening the bonds again and by cutting the race in relation to deputy doherty he said that i'm trying to um that i was uh dismissing that i'm not not dismissing it for a moment but i'm making the point that the additional money that we are collecting here will be used on public services that our country wants to see improved in relation to the point i made there regarding people not being convinced by the arguments that deputy doherty authority had to be making i should have made clear that i meant that on a party basis rather than you for a play to you the number of votes you got uh reflects the passion that you have uh that you're right to have the expertise that you have and the work you do within your constituency but i did make the point and i'll make it again uh that shin fame were quite rare in opposition parties across 2024 and 2025 at a time in which inflation was so high that you didn't get into government and i believe part of that and there are many different reasons why is i think there are people that do understand and i'm making the case to them uh that the taxes that we collect play a very valuable role in funding the public services that our country wants and there are not easy answers available regarding how you would fund the abolition of the local property tax the answers are not easy and we've already had a debate in relation to it i've made counter arguments to the different points that you have made in relation to the funds this is an issue uh uh the investment funds uh this is an issue that you and i have debated over over many years uh but we have seen that apartment construction there uh decreased very rapidly last year and we need savings and pensions and capital and other parts of the world to play a role in building more apartments within ireland and that is why we have a a taxation structure in place to do that but even with that structure in place we saw in the second half of last year that the number of new homes uh new apartments that were being built was way below what we know our country needs and then in relation to the points there that deputy mcgrath made regarding the issues in tipperary uh and the very serious issue that you raised there i would just put back to you deputy that will those problems be any easier to solve if we remove funding from local authorities and that in effect is what the abolition of the local property tax would do you then say back to me well we can find that money in other ways and i'm sure you have ideas in which that could happen and then at that point i'd argue to you that the other ways of raising 600 million euro will have effects that i believe uh won't be good for our economy or for our country in the long run so uh there are the points that i would make back uh to the charges uh and critiques that have been made there uh and to emphasize again i know asking people to pay more at a time in which the effect of inflation is still felt will be difficult for many but we have made significant changes to the local property tax regime for the second time since was introduced to try to help at least for some those increases to be affordable we are um using all of the money that has been collected here to pay for public services that our country wants thank you mr