VETERAN presenter Gay Byrne has claimed his property tax assessment is "completely off the wall" after receiving what he believes is an incorrect bill.

The 78-year-old is fuming with the Labour Party and "unelected European bureaucrats" who he blames for introducing the new tax.

Gay, who vigorously opposed a similar property tax in the 1990s, said : "I always thought the property tax was a bad idea and it is there solely to appease the Labour Party and the left-wing people in Government. That's why it's there and the Troika in Europe who want it for the same reasons.

Detested

"This should be proof to us that we are no longer masters of our fate. We are being told what to do every single hour of every day by unelected bureaucrats in Brussels. They are doing the same in Cyprus," Gay said.

The former Late Late Show host is querying the assessment for the Sandymount property in which he lives with wife Kathleen Watkins following their move from Howth.

"You would think Sandymount would be easy for them, but it isn't. But I am in the same position as people all over the country who have got these bills coming through the door, which are way too high or too low.

"You have to pay because they have you every way, because if you assess yourself and it's too low, they can come back in five years and charge you penalties, do it too high, and they will just take your money and you're just an idiot," he added.

He said his opposition to the property tax, which he began on the Gay Byrne Hour, the weekday radio programme he presented for 27 years on RTE Radio, had infuriated the Labour Party.

"I know the Labour Party at the time detested me for my opposition to it. Because they saw the people being taxed as wealthy people living in big houses.

"But I had letters from old and retired people all over the country who were living in reasonably good houses which they had bought 40 or 50 years beforehand.

"These older people were certainly not earning the same money any more, and on a low pension, it seemed to be, and I said it out loud on the radio day after day, they were being taxed for just staying alive," he said.

hnews@herald.ie