Gilmore satisfied homeowners will be able to afford new rate

Tánaiste and Labour Party leader Eamon Gilmore has said he is satisfied homeowners will be able to afford the property tax to be introduced next summer.

Mr Gilmore indicated work remained to be done on formulating the new tax to be announced on the day of the budget on December 5th when he spoke to reporters at his party’s “think-in” in Maynooth.

Asked if he was satisfied the rate would be “affordable”, he told reporters: “Yes I am satisfied. We have committed ourselves to the introduction of a property tax to replace the household charge.”

He said they had yet to decide on how it would be constructed. “We have some work done on how it might be collected but the basis for the property tax has not yet been decided.”

Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Brendan Howlin insisted the Government would not allow a divide to open up between rural and urban dwellers. Minister of State for European Affairs Lucinda Creighton recently said people living in Dublin and other cities should not be discriminated against and “punished for their address” when it came to paying the value-based tax.

Mr Howlin told RTÉ’s Today with Pat Kenny: “The Government is alive to that. There can’t be that disparity and that is one of the issues that will be addressed.”