THE Government's commitment to consider the future of Residential Property Tax in the context of a professional study of local government financing wasted by the Minister of State for Finance.

Ms Avril Doyle was responding to a Fianna Fail motion, in private members' time, demanding "immediate abolition" of RPT because it "unfairly penalises those who reside within certain regions of the country".

She moved an amendment, on which the House will vote today, which notes "the speedy action" of the Government in last year's Budget to reverse the changes in the income and house value thresholds for RPT introduced in 1994 and welcoming the continued "steady progress made by the Government in improving the tax system".

Ms Doyle said Fianna Fail had seven years to abolish RPT and instead it doubled the number of people in the net when it was in power.

"While the issue of taxation of property has always been a controversial one in Ireland, the present controversy can be said to stem from the decision announced in the 1994 Budget by the current leader of Fianna Fail to reduce the house value and household income threshold to £75,000 and £25,000 compared with £91,000 and £28,000 and to replace the flat 1.5 per cent rate with a new rate of 1, 1.5 and 2 per cent."

The threshold changes announced in the 1995 Budget halved the number of taxpayers paying RPT compared with the previous year, she said.

The study promised in the Programme for Renewal had been commissioned, completed and published and the Government was committed to ensuring that "a fair, equitable and reasonable system of funding can be introduced".

The great proponents of tax reform, the Progressive Democrats, during their period in government showed a distinct lack of interest in taxpayers caught in the RPT net. "Their new found interest has been cultivated on the Opposition benches particularly in recent times with a general election looming."

RPT would be paid this year by 23,000 households, representing just 2 per cent of the total stock of about 900,000 owner occupied houses in the country.

To make progress on the question of funding local authorities, Ms Doyle said the Minister for the Environment had approached the two opposition parties in the belief that the subject was best approached on an all party basis. The Minister would be following up these approaches shortly.

"Pending discussion between the various parties it would be premature to speculate on the format of any joint approach to the issue should this prove acceptable to the parties." If agreement on a consensus approach could not be reached the issue would be addressed in the context of a "strategy statement".

The Minister for the Environment would launch a strategy for renewal of local government by the end of the year. The strategy statement would address key issues of local government through a planned action programme with clear objectives. The question of funding would be included in the strategy statement.

The Fianna Fail spokesman on finance, Mr Charlie McCreevy, affirming his party's intention to repeal RPT if returned to office, said "it was born out of the confused socialist thinking so beloved by the left of Irish politics. It is the typical old Labour Party doctrine of begrudgery".

It did not start from an equitable basis. "RPT is a tax which is not an income tax, and it is not a wealth tax. It is in fact a discriminatory tax, an anti family tax."

It penalised those who resided within certain regions of the country. Seventy seven per cent of RPT was paid last year by people living in Dublin. It heavily penalised householders who provided a home for themselves and their families.

Since RPT was introduced in 1983 income levels and property value thresholds had increased by about 5 per cent, while property prices had increased by 25 to 30 per cent. "This dramatic divergence just keeps growing and if current and forecast property prices hold true, the divergence will just get greater and the unfairness will continue to escalate."

Many modest modern three or four bedroom houses were now achieving prices of £100,000 and more. Since January prices had risen by 15 per cent.

Fianna Fail was aware that "an urgent and full debate" on local government financing was needed. The RPT yield, however, never went to local government. It always found a home in the central Exchequer.

The Fianna Fail leader, Mr Bertie Ahern, said there was obviously great division within the Coalition ranks about whether to keep or scrap the tax. Fianna Fail, he repeated, gave "a clear, unambiguous commitment" to abolish.

The Rainbow Coalition was naive if it thought the voters "would be impressed by "last minute electioneering giveaways" in next year's Budget. The Exchequer returns out yesterday showed how much taxpayers were short changed by the Government this year. "People will remember how little of their own money they got back in the 1995 and 1996 budgets. Labour and Democratic Left are irreformable public spenders. Tax concessions in their book are due only once every five years to keep the voters quiet."

The Government had been increasing spending in all directions except health and law and order. Hospital queues lengthened and the drugs and crime situation was not being brought under control.

The abolition of RPT would provide a signal at a small cost to the Exchequer that there was an intention to tackle high levels of taxation.

He warned the parties of the left "not to be thinking up new ways to fleece the public after the election". Further tolls on the Dublin ring road would be unacceptable and he would hold the Minister for the Environment responsible for any toll imposed by the National Roads Authority.