At a special meeting of Dublin City Council on Monday 23rd September 2019 Mary’s motion on behalf of the Fianna Fáil group to maintain LPT charges for Dublin City Homeowners was passed with the support of Sinn Féin, Fine Gael, Independent and People before Profit City Councillors.
In general terms Fianna Fail is opposed to the Local Property Tax in its current form because the funds collected locally are not spent locally, the charges do not take account of people’s ability to pay or other management charges they incur.
Fianna Fáil favours a fairer site value tax and has made proposals for reform of the Local Property Tax which the Government continues to fail to act on.
Green, Labour and Social Democrat City Councillors voted against the Fianna Fáil motion. They proposed an alternative motion to increase the LPT charges for Dublin City homeowners by 15% or €12million.
Mary believes it would be grossly unfair on Dublin City homeowners to charge them an extra €12m in LPT when we already lose €16m of the €80m we pay to other counties, the Government pays no rates, LPT takes no account of homeowners ability to pay and there is no guarantee that the extra €12m would be put into direct services.
The LPT needs to be structurally reformed and replaced by a site value tax that takes account of people’s ability to pay. All LPT collected in Dublin City should be spent in Dublin City and the Government should pay the €30m a year due in rates on Government properties in the city.