Dublin City Council should introduce a tourist tax and use the extra revenue to cut the Local Property Tax, Sinn Féin has argued.
Since the LPT was introduced, councils have had discretion to increase or decrease it by up to 15%.
Although Dublin City Council has always applied the 15% discount, it is expected that today councillors will vote for an increase.
Ahead of the vote, Sinn Féin has reiterated its position that the LPT is “unfair” and “regressive”.
On Newstalk Breakfast, Councillor Daithí Doolan said the party believes there are better ways to raise revenue.
“It is not based on people’s ability to pay or your income; it’s on your home,” he explained.
“And Dubliners are unfairly punished by the extremely high price of housing in the capital.
“People pay tax already; in fact, we’ve a budget surplus of €8 billion - a record budget surplus.
“Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael are out of touch with the reality of ordinary families here in Dublin who are struggling every day to get by.
“We want to use the limited powers that we have tonight to reduce the Local Property Tax by 15%, rather than turning around and asking people who are already hard pressed to… fork out more money to carry out the essential repairs in Dublin.”
The Ha'penny Bridge. Picture by: Alamy.com. Cllr Doolan continued that the State should instead use some of the budget surplus to fund local government, or allow councillors to introduce a tourist tax.
“One option that we’re working on in a spirit of cross party cooperation is the tourist tax,” he said.
“That would raise far more money than an increase in the Local Property Tax.
“We see again, central Government putting barrier upon barrier in front of us to do this.”
'Robbed the city of millions of euro'
With support from Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil, the Greens and Labour, the motion to end the 15% LPT discount is expected to pass.
Advocating for the increase, Green Party Councillor Janet Horner said the council urgently needs more revenue.
“[It’s] a motion that will end the historic tax cut which has robbed the city of millions of euro of investment, which we desperately need to address some of the massive deficits that we see in our city, that we hear about and often discuss on Newstalk,” she said.
“We want to invest that money into housing maintenance for our council housing tenants, where people are living with mould, with damp, with cold conditions.
“Which are really completely substandard for the kind of city that we live in for this day and age.
“We want to invest in the footpaths, in vacancy and dereliction - all the things we know are detracting from Dublin living up to its full potential.”
Cllr Horner added that the LPT discount has “historically massively benefited the best off”, who are disproportionately likely to be property owners.
Main image: A split of a tourist with money in his pocket and homes in Dublin. Pictures by: Alamy and Rolling News.
