TDs can repeal Property Tax – ‘a tax too far’ – by voting for Sinn Féin Bill

» John Hedges

An Phoblacht Editor

‘No other measures such as boycott or refusing to value your home will work. We need to build a campaign for the repeal of the Bill and that is where Sinn Féin is focused.’

TDs and senators from all parties will have the chance to vote against the Property Tax when a Bill to repeal it is tabled in the Dáil by Sinn Féin as part of a state-wide lobbying and leafleting campaign to build grassroots opposition.

“The only way to stop this tax is to repeal the Bill,” Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams TD said in Dublin on Tuesday. “No other measures such as boycott or refusing to value your home will work. We need to build a campaign for the repeal of the Bill and that is where Sinn Féin is focused.”

The Bill is one strand of a wider campaign of lobbying, meetings with groups such as the credit unions and NGOs, and leafleting by Sinn Féin activists across the state.

Announcing the moves on Tuesday as the Sinn Féin Oireachtas Group met in Dublin ahead of Leinster House reconvening on Wednesday after the Christmas/New Year recess, Gerry Adams TD said:

“This family home tax, the brainchild of Fianna Fáil, gives the state unprecedented powers to collect it.

“The financial implications for households are very serious.

“It will especially punish those on low and middle incomes, social welfare recipients and the disabled.

“It doesn’t take into account ability to pay, people’s mortgages, the amount they paid in stamp duty, and negative equity.

“This is a tax too far.”