Thousands of individuals and families throughout Ireland are this week receiving letters from Revenue detailing estimates of their local property tax liabilities. Many families are struggling on low incomes and cannot pay their mortgages, yet they are none the less expected to pay the property tax. The Government has decided that families with a gross weekly income of anything above €480 are not allowed to defer their liabilities. Anyone who genuinely cannot afford to pay will be hit with a penalty interest of 8% per annum.

This tax is deeply unfair and fails in any meaningful way to take an inability to pay into account. Today, we learned that seven out of the eight people living in unfinished housing estates who were exempt from last year's household charge would be required to pay this property tax. The number of people in unfinished developments who are exempted has dropped spectacularly from 43,000 to 5,000 simply because the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government instructed local authorities to visit every unfinished development and identify which houses should pay.

What people want above all else is fairness and consistency. A family that lives in an unfinished housing estate and is lucky enough to have a footpath outside the door and a working public light must pay the property tax, yet another family around the corner in the same estate will be exempted because its house looks out onto a heap of rubble that should have been a green area. This is a ridiculous scenario.

The Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government is using the National Housing Development Survey 2012 report to justify the dramatic drop in the number of people who will be allowed to avail of an exemption. According to it, there are approximately 1,100 unfinished developments that are in a "seriously problematic condition". The report outlines what must be wrong in an estate for it to fall into this category. The estate would need to be in a bad condition to qualify.

The Deputy has gone over time. Could we have a question?

Not all of the 1,100 estates will be exempt. The Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government has decided that exemptions will only apply to certain homes in a little over 400 of the estates in question. That is blatantly unfair. Can the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, Deputy Rabbitte, justify the significant discrepancy between the number of estates that have been cited as being in a "seriously problematic condition" and the number of exemptions granted?

This relates to two factors, those being, the improved performance in finishing previously unfinished estates-----

Where?

-----and the application of a standardised nationwide methodology of assessment. Deputy Michael McGrath well knows the background to the property tax. He ought to, given the fact that his party authored it.

The question is on the derogation.

The tax's purpose is to broaden the tax base so that the Government can avoid putting additional taxes on income and people at work. In terms of fairness and consistency, I am sure that the Deputy will agree that it would not be fair to require some citizens to pay while exempting others.

The Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government assures me that it has gone through the estates one by one and taken decisions on their standards. I presume that the Deputy will accept that, if phase 4 of an estate is not commenced and probably will not be in my lifetime, whatever about his, it is wrong to categorise it as an unfinished estate. The established criteria, which are available for viewing on the website and set out the essentials that must be complied with, are transparent. As the Deputy stated, they reduce the number of unfinished developments that will be exempted to 421.

The application of the tax across the board must be efficiently collected. For this reason, the Government, having regard to the efficacy of previous collection systems, has allocated that responsibility to Revenue, which will enforce the law.

I will not use my limited time to go into the politics of this issue or of the promises made by Labour and Fine Gael on taxing the family home.

Go on.

What about Fianna Fáil's promises?

The promises are there for all to see. I raised the-----

Deputy Finian McGrath will help. He knows.

Remind the Minister.

Deputies, please. A limited amount of time is available.

This is another legacy issue.

Please, quieten down. Deputy Michael McGrath only has one minute.

I am sorry.

Deputy Durkan should keep his blood pressure down.

Has Deputy Michael McGrath ever asked himself why there are unfinished estates?

Hold on. This is the debating Chamber-----

Why do they always stand up and-----

-----and Deputy Michael McGrath is entitled to his point of view, whether Deputies agree with it or not.

Deputy Eric Byrne is getting a bit upset.

The Minister will have a chance to respond.

This morning, we have again seen why it would be futile to elect another Government back bench Deputy in Meath East next week.

All of Fianna Fáil's buddies in the construction industry.

This is what we get every morning when we ask legitimate questions.

Hear, hear.

Does Deputy Michael McGrath not like history?

Neither does Deputy Eric Byrne.

I raised a specific question with the Minister, Deputy Rabbitte. It concerned the decision of the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government to disregard the report that he is using as a basis.

That is not true.

According to it, 1,100 unfinished developments are in a "seriously problematic condition". It cites issues of lighting, water supply, wastewater, roads not being of at least base course level, footpaths and open spaces. It is not easy to get into a category described as "seriously problematic". The report is based on the returns from the local authorities, yet the Minister has cut the 1,100 estates to 400. Within each of those 400 estates, only certain houses will be exempt.

The Minister, Deputy Rabbitte, cannot claim that this decision is based on the report when it clearly is not. Grave inconsistency and unfairness are running through the way in which the property tax is being introduced. This morning has provided yet another example, given the way that those who are living in unfinished estates are being treated.

I do not see how Deputy McGrath thinks he can leave politics out of it.

I do not see how the Minister can either.

The reason we have the unfinished estates is because of the chronic mismanagement that went on under the Fianna Fáil-led Government.

It is because of Government party councillors.

Members, please.

Our councillors did not do anything wrong.

Why do the Government party Members not keep digging?

That is the reason-----

What about the Galway tent?

Hold on a second. The Minister is entitled to respond to Deputy McGrath. Will Members please afford him the opportunity to do so?

We would if he answered the question he was asked.

That is the reason we have the legacy of unfinished estates.

Government party councillors control all the councils. They have for the past ten years. That is true.

It is difficult to listen to Deputy McGrath bleeding for the citizens when his Government authored the property tax-----

They were the executioners.

It is a family home tax.

-----and made it a condition that must now be implemented to comply with troika funding. It was a Fianna Fáil proposition. The party was in favour of property tax then and now because it is in the middle of a by-election it pretends to be opposed to it.

Hear, hear.

That is not true.

Fianna Fáil is living in the past.

The report from which Deputy McGrath quoted is out of date. It was completed last summer-----

It is dated November.

-----and the situation worked out since between the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government and local authorities focused on estates one-by-one on the basis of certain criteria, for example, the installation and commissioning of public lighting, provision of potable water supply, provision of wastewater collection, treatment and disposal systems, access roads to at least base coarse level, including where required provision for parking, provision of access to the dwelling by constructed footpath, provision of open space capable of serving as amenity needs of permitted developments.

They are the criteria for getting into the problematic category.

They have gone through the criteria and decided that 421 developments do not comply with the standards.

The report states there are 1,100.

The 421 developments in question will be exempt but, otherwise, the local property tax, which Fianna Fáil introduced, will be implemented-----

It was introduced by the Government.

-----because it is a requirement of the funding arrangement with the troika.

The Minister, Deputy Rabbitte, is in government.

It is a home tax, not a property tax.

When the household charge was levied - the €100 flat charge on people's homes - more than 1,300 ghost estates which were not completed were exempt from the charge. What the Minister is asking the Dáil to accept – apart from setting aside the report which identifies 1,100 incomplete estates – is that in less than a year the number of unfinished estates has more than halved. He also asks us to accept that even within those estates which are still incomplete that some households enjoy proper services and facilities while others do not. It is a bit rich for the Minister to make claims of consistency and fairness when his argument is as patchy and ridden with contradictions as it is.

Will the Minister address himself to the thousands of people and families who live in those estates, who have had the stress and inconvenience of living in what in many cases amount to little more than building sites? Could he explain to them how it is fair for the Government to make a demand on them for a payment on their family home? He might also consider in his response whether it is reasonable that a single person, for instance, earning a gross income of €16,000, would be faced with a demand for payment on his or her family home, or that a couple, for instance, with a gross income of €30,000, should be asked to pay the charge on their family home. When he responds the Minister should bear in mind that those categories of person are not mutually exclusive. Many families and individuals live in ghost estates – building sites – who earn modest incomes. What about the Minister’s argument for fairness?

Sinn Féin is clearly disappointed that progress has been made on unfinished estates but that is the case.

That is rubbish.

When the local household charge was introduced it was a holding arrangement and was announced as such at the time and a broad-brush approach was taken to the exclusion of unfinished estates. Since then, based on the criteria to which I have referred, and in arrangement with local authorities, the estates have been addressed one-by-one. I am sorry Sinn Féin is disappointed that the improvements have been recorded but that is the case. The exclusion of 421 developments is considered fair in terms of one neighbour being required to pay property tax and another being exempt. As Deputy Michael McGrath said, fairness and consistency must be applied.

Why is that not happening then?

Except by the Labour Party.

I hope Deputy McDonald will also welcome the exclusion of estates built by developers who used pyrite and who built homes that resulted in extraordinary hardship and misery for householders. In terms of criteria that warrant exemption, they have been gone through with a fine-tooth comb and I regard what the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government has now published as fair.

The disappointed people will be not just those living in ghost estates – the Minister chose to discriminate between households even in those developments he argues ought to be exempt – but will be broader than that. The Government has applied a broad brush in levying the tax. It is the view of the Government that even people on social welfare and small incomes will be forced to pay the tax on their family home. The Government fails the fairness test. The Government seems to have a rather perverse definition of what constitutes fairness, but it is consistent because it has consistently gone back to the same set of people and consistently put its hand in the pockets of low and middle income families, people who are struggling just to get by and those living in unfinished ghost estates – polite language for building sites. It is perverse for a Minister, in particular one from the Labour Party, to offer in the Dáil rhetoric of fairness and fair play in that regard.

How does the Minister imagine families will pay the tax? He should put himself in the shoes of a family living in an incomplete housing development whose annual income is €30,000. Where will it get the money to meet the tax? How could the Minister suggest that in any way it represents fairness or equity for those people and their families?

The purpose of the tax-----

It is not a fair tax.

-----is to broaden the tax base and to bring property taxation in this country partially into line with the experience across Europe. We are virtually the only country in the OECD that does not have a property tax. What Deputy McDonald is concealing is her complete opposition to the property tax, which is remarkable given that up the road there is a property tax in Newry three times as large as the property tax being introduced here.

It is a system of rates to pay for services.

Could Sinn Féin have introduced that?

It pays for services.

This kind of partitionist mentality on behalf of Sinn Féin is difficult to understand. How is it that it is alright in one part of the island but not alright in another part of the island? The Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government consulted carefully with every local authority, told them the purpose of what it was engaged in and asked them to assess the estates against the criteria I outlined and we are aware of the result.

The opposition of Sinn Féin to any measure that seeks to rectify the difficulties into which the country has been plunged-----

Is just like the Labour Party in opposition.

Deputy McDonald, in particular, is very good at describing the problem-----

The Government is very good at compounding the problem.

-----but she is not very good at coming up with solutions. What we need, in these circumstances, are solutions. I would be careful if I was a member of Fianna Fáil, given the legacy of the problem we are discussing. It is remarkable that Fianna Fáil Deputies are prepared to put their heads above the parapet, given their connections to this problem.

The Minister should remember that we did get elected.

Is the Minister going to talk about his own connections?

Of course, all one has to do is go out to the north side of Dublin and have a look at the pyrite-affected houses and one understands the Sinn Féin link to the issue.

The Minister should answer my question.

The Minister is trying to throw down the gauntlet. That is the oldest trick in the book.

We are dealing with a legacy issue and we are seeking to deal with it in as fair and consistent a manner as we can.

It is a dirty trick.

I would hope that at least the party that authored the property tax would now support it.

If those Deputies in the side show would stay quiet when someone is speaking, it would be a great help.