The Green Party’s environment spokesperson Cllr Malcolm Noonan has called on backbench Fine Gael TDs who are unhappy with the new Local Property Tax to join his party in supporting a fairer site value tax system.
The Kilkenny man says the new property tax, which comes into force in July, is “anti-urban” and needs to be changed.
Commenting on the matter, he said: “The Fine Gael TDs in urban areas are right to point out the fundamental unfairness of the property tax that is being introduced. They can back up that talk by supporting the Green Party proposal for a site value tax which provides a credible and fairer alternative to what is being introduced."
"By doing so, they would be backing their own Programme for Government which favoured a site value tax, and which was abandoned without any proper analysis or explanation from either Government party over the last two years," he continued.
"Minister Phil Hogan cannot hide the fundamental contradiction in his approach. Within the one breath he said that whatever money was collected locally would be spent locally, and at the same time that urban areas are going to have to pay up for the rest of the country. His only argument in support of the value based property tax was that the Government had decided upon it."
"We hope that the members of the Government parties looking for a change on this unfair and inefficient form of property tax will join us in calling for a switch to the better and more sustainable alternative. They wouldn't even have to call it a U-turn, it would just be going back to what they promised in the first place," concluded Cllr Noonan.
