Minister for the Environment Phil Hogan said today he could not guarantee that the household charge would remain at €100 for the next two years.
The annual flat-rate tariff will be levied on households for a temporary two-year period from January before being replaced by a full property tax in 2014.
Mr Hogan said the charge would raise €160 million in 2012 which would go towards funding local services such as fire services and street lighting.
However, he said he could not guarantee the charge would remain at the same rate even for the duration of the temporary period.
"Each year the Minister for Finance will have to look at the budgetary arithmetic. All I can is that for 2012, it will be €100 or €2 a week," Mr Hogan told RTÉ's Today with Pat Kenny programme.
The United Left Alliance said yesterday it would organise a nationwide boycott of the tax,which is due to be levied on households from January.
Socialist Party TD Joe Higgins claimed the charge could rise to €500 in a short time. His ULA colleague Richard Boyd Barrett said it charged the richest people the same rate as the poorest.
Dismissing the prospect of a national boycott, Mr Hogan said: “We are as a country broke…we’re obliged to bring in these charges otherwise we won’t get the funding that’s necessary from our partners in Europe to fund the country…if people like Joe Higgins want to grandstand in the Dáil about it they can tell the people where they’re going to get the money otherwise."
Earlier, Minister for Justice Alan Shatter also dismissed protest plans by the Opposition, saying the Government had been forced to impose it as part of its obligations under the EU-IMF rescue plan.
Mr Hogan plans to establish a new State utility company, Irish Water, in the autumn to oversee the process of installing meters in all domestic dwellings which would pave the way for domestic water charges based on usage in two years’ time.
The new charges will be the first local taxes to be introduced for more than 30 years, since the new Fianna Fáil government led by Jack Lynch abolished domestic rates in 1977. The Minister has contended the charges would reintroduce a great deal of autonomy to local authorities to finance their operations.
Opposition parties derided the new charge as an unfair and punitive tax that would affect the most vulnerable in society. Fianna Fáil’s Niall Collins was highly critical of its flat-rate nature. Similarly, Sinn Féin’s Aengus Ó Snodaigh said its “seeping nature” would affect some of the poorest families in the State.
Only 250,000 households, some 14 per cent, will be exempt from paying the charge. They include people in social housing owned by local authorities, families in receipt of mortgage-interest supplement and people living in nursing homes or mental institutions.
Those in mortgage arrears, State pensioners and those in receipt of social welfare will be required to pay the tax. Householders will be expected to declare their liability to tax in the same manner as the second home tax. Some 1.6 million households will have to pay the charge.
Announcing details of the plan yesterday, Mr Hogan accepted the tax would cause hardship to some families, but presented it as the minimum possible charge he could have applied, saying it would cost “ a modest €2 per week”.
“I think that people are suffering and are under pressure. I am obliged to introduce it but have done it at the lowest possible level to ensure provision of essential local services.”
Households which own second properties, including holiday homes and rented properties, will be required to pay the household charge for each property. That will mean a family with a holiday home will pay a total of €400 per annum – a €100 household charge for each property and a €200 second-property levy.
Those who fail to pay on time will pay a penalty of €10 a month. The legislation for the charge will include further details of penalties, including a possibility of imprisonment for persistent failure to pay.
Asked about the threatened boycott campaign by the Opposition, Mr Hogan insisted it would have to be paid, saying the charge would become “the law of the land like every other charge”.
Mr Hogan defended the charges as “essential” in ensuring the continuation of local services such as street maintenance, waste services, libraries, park maintenance and leisure facilities.