Through the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, the Government is driving a Bill through the Dáil to give city and county managers exclusive rights to levy refuse charges on householders and the absolute right to decide their levels. The Government is also attempting to intimidate the substantial cohort of compliant PAYE taxpayers and contributory pensioners who oppose the current bin tax and boycotting it by allowing the local authority to leave their bins uncollected on the side of the street. If the Taoiseach's backbenchers, especially those from Dublin, had been doing their job right, they would have told him and the Minister how opposed a majority of PAYE workers are to their plans. This is particularly the case in the capital which comprises a third of the population and a huge cohort of the compliant tax-paying community. These people see that the Government is deluded if it thinks it can smash the anti-bin tax campaign in Dublin, to privatise the bin collection service, to allow charges to rise to €700 or €800 per annum, as set by the county and city managers, to bring back water charges and to have a parallel tier of local taxation in place, which will quickly reach €1,000 per household and carry on upwards. Furthermore, this is not subject to a single vote of the Dáil or of local councillors since all these rights are being removed.

If the Taoiseach persists, getting these measures through the Dáil will be the easiest task he will face. Does he realise he will face sustained and active opposition in the communities and the exercise of democratic people power? Does he not understand that many PAYE taxpayers, and particularly pensioners, believe that if they had exercised their people power in the 1970s and 1980s, they would not have been taken for a ride. They were fleeced by the tax system while the Ansbacher men and off-shore account merchants were salting away their hidden gains. If they had fought more openly at that time, these crooks would have been outed long ago and many of the services which were savagely cut could have been saved. There is no going back to the 1970s or 1980s for the bulk of the tax-paying public. I ask the Taoiseach to reflect again and withdraw these measures.

These issues were discussed and debated on Committee Stage last night, therefore, I do not want to go into them. Some 70% of people pay charges and there are good and fair waiver systems available. The burden of tax, including the old tax wedge for people on the margins, is now the lowest in Europe and the burden of tax on individuals is way down the league of other EU countries.

In regard to service charges, I have a different view. I like to see the open spaces of the city and county looked after. I would not like to go back to the early 1980s when they were strewn with rubble and there were no landscaped parks. We now have the finest national and local authority parks, where facilities are provided. This has been developed over many years.

The Taoiseach is getting carried away.

I thought that Deputy Michael D. Higgins, at least, would be interested.

Obviously, Deputy Joe Higgins does not want to see such facilities. It appears he wants to be against everything. I am for things, which is where the Deputy and I differ. I like to see progress and clean communities, whereas the Deputy just wants to rant that it should all be paid for out of central taxation. That is an old argument which has long gone.

The Taoiseach will find out to his cost that the bulk of PAYE taxpayers, for whom I stand and speak in the House, do not agree with him.

More Deputies than the Deputy himself were elected. He is a self-appointed spokesman.

He has privatised the majority of local authority bin collection services, which means there is no waiver for old age pensioners and the poor. If pushed, this proposal will have a detrimental effect. Some 37% of households in the home area of the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government admitted in a local authority survey that they burned their refuse. They also said that the level of charges was a factor in their doing so.

The Deputy should not misquote me.

Why is the Government targeting the ordinary householder? They are the most substantial cohort of the tax-paying public.

I hear the drums, Fernando.

In the year since the general election, the Taoiseach has introduced stealth taxes thar na bearta, increased charges galore and cut the first-time house buyer's grant, all of which are mortal blows to ordinary people. Why does the Taoiseach not go out and catch the millionaire stallions which are prancing tax free on the plains of Kildare under the protective gaze of the Minister for Finance?

I hope one of them wins on Sunday.

Why does he not provide for giving back some of the €1 billion which the Minister for Finance is giving back to the corporate sector in tax breaks in this year alone?

Does the Taoiseach understand that, even if he puts this measure through, he will face a political war of attrition right up to and during the European and local elections? Does he further realise that he will not break the campaigns which represent the views of the many compliant and decent taxpayers, who are the bedrock of the tax-paying system?

Some €4 billion has been given back to the taxpayers in recent years and the level of taxation across society is substantially lower than when these issues took place some 20 years ago. It is far better that local charges with good waiver systems, which some 70% of people pay, are used to enhance our areas. Deputy Higgins used to be worried about the Control of Horses Act in his constituency but now he is worried about stallions. The reason the horses issue has been resolved is that local authorities were able to put money into controlling them. If the Deputy is really interested in environmental policy, I suggest his party should stop at every hand's turn on every issue, plastering grotty posters all over the city and then not taking them down.

Hear, hear.