1 Month in Jail

Cork

Originally posted by SkepticOne
I disagree with bin charges. I think it should be paid out of general tax revenue.

I've not problem with Higgins going to jail if he broke the law.

Prior to 1977 - Irish people paid rates and local tax - so local taxes in Ireland are no way new.

In West Cork - your rubbish bill is based on the wieght of your rubbish in your bin. It is encouraging people to cut down on the amount of refuse they put into their bins.

It is encouraging people go go to bring sites. It costs alot to operate landfill sites. People should be encouraged to recycle. Having flat or no waste collection charges hardly encourages recycling.

In a country where schools and health need resources - people who expect their rubbish to be collected for free need to get away and accept responsibility for the rubbish they produce.

I wish they was a magic wound that could make it disappear - but landfill costs many €. There is nobody asking people to put out bins every week. It is up to these people to seperate and recycle their rubbish. They will also need to pay a collecter to dispose of what remains.

Expecting the state to pay for peoples rubbish is OTT.

secret_squirrel

Originally posted by Cork
Prior to 1977 - Irish people paid rates and local tax - so local taxes in Ireland are no way new.
......
Expecting the state to pay for peoples rubbish is OTT.

Yea so that means for the biggest part of 25 years we havent had to pay local taxes (and presumably national taxation increased at that time)

Why its just as OTT as expecting the state to pay for roads, water etc. That is - not at all OTT.

There is no reason why rubbish collection couldnt be paid for at the national level. Instead its yet another example of the govt taking our tax money to piss up the wall on their pet projects whilst we also get bin taxes as the thin end of a wedge of new local taxation.

The national income tax rates are already obscene without adding local taxation into the mix. Giving local coucilors or worse city managers carte blanche to raise local taxes is just creating an environment where they can rob us as well.

Does any one believe that the money raised by bin taxes is going to be used only for that. Before you know it, it will be being used for every pet project going.

dudara

i personally believe that if you generate waste, then you pay to have it taken away. Simple as that.

On the other hand however, the government aren't doing enough to enocourage waste reduction through recycling etc.

Higgins was obstructing the waste collectors, which isn't the most pleasant of jobs I'd imagine. He was preventing civil employees from carrying out their duties.

This is a tricky one, no one wants to pay more taxes, but there is a lot of hyprocrisy going on here, especially in his jail sentence, considering he wasn't defrauding the country like so many others.

Boston

Actually waste collection and street sweeping are very nice jobs, i know several people doing these jobs, the basic rates, the overtime, and all the little jobs make it very worth while. A friend of mine comes out with close to 600 euros a week for street sweaping around town. wouldn't have believed it if i hadn't seen it.

Sands, won't disagree with you that all law breakers should be punished, but imprisoned, i think not. Don't tell me you have broken even the most minor of laws. ITs all about the real world, and in the real world a man who stabbed another man 30 times was out on a thousand euros bail afew months ago. I guy i know, his brother was stabbed to death, person who did it got 38 months in prison. I'd rather that guy go two more months then these protestors got a month each.


To the person who argued that they caused a health hazzard by block bin trucks from picking up rubbish, don't forget that it was the intension of these bin men not to collect rubbish from certain areas, is that not a major health hazzard. what are people for whome their bins are not collected meant to do? store their rubbish in their gardens, dump illegaly, burn it?

PhilipMarlowe

Higgins et al. were jailed for deliberately being in contempt of a court order…
Lawlor was jailed for failure to co-operate with a tribunal (not for his dodgy dealings…yet).

If you believe that Higgins shouldn’t have been jailed for his obstreperousness, then you’d also agree that Lawlor shouldn’t have been either?
No?

Boston

lawler got a week for what he did, which was contempt, for lieing and perveting the course of justice. higgins was jailed for not bending to the powers that be, agenda. Question is, do you think lawler will ever serve any more time

Also it had taken years of contempt before he was sent to jail, higgins was there within a week. hmm seems like two systems going.

mike65

Originally posted by secret_squirrel
Yea so that means for the biggest part of 25 years we havent had to pay local taxes (and presumably national taxation increased at that time)

The national income tax rates are already obscene without adding local taxation into the mix.

Income tax rates are now the lowest they have EVER been
since this state became vaguely modern.

Back in the era just after local rates (and car tax) were abolished the standard rate of Income tax was around 35% with the top rate in the 60% area, whatsmore you went off the standard rate at a very low income.

Mike.

Sparks

We are not heavily taxed compared to EU tax rates.

I'm not even sure that that's true in the first place, but in the second place, goodbody's have been pointing out to anyone that reads them that the song is coming to an end in terms of the Irish economy because in a few years we are expected to start contributing to EU funds on the order of a billion euro plus per year.
So you can't just point to the tax level now and say "erra, sure and 'tis grand". Our house must be in order when that first bill arrives, because there won't be any way to get it in order after that, the money won't be there.

Now I've got no problem with local taxation - for some services, like bin collection, it makes the most sense and is the fairest means. But we've already paid for it in income tax, so lumping another local tax onto the bill without tax relief on the income tax is simply out of the question.

And to forestall two obvious responses:
1) I'm not in Dublin, and we've been paying a private company for waste removal for years,
2) The tax relief you do already get on local services amounts to 38 euro and it covers water taxes, not bin taxes.

This whole episode is highlighting the fact that Local Authorities are a shambolic setup in this country, treated as mushrooms by central government, and that has got to stop.

Éomer of Rohan

Quoted from Biffa Bacon
I agree. People who break the law should not be punished. The authorities should always turn a blind eye to flagrant law-breaking if it's politically convenient for them to do so. After all, from paedophile priests to tax-dodging Taoisigh, that's what's made this country great

Well, let's see now, Joe Higgins, TD who was bloody elected for his promise to the working peoples of Dublin West that he would help them in their struggle against the increasing tax burden that the government was readying is arrested for doing exactly what the people gave him a mandate to do.

The high court order was ridiculous. In an establishment that is probably as conservative as the UK at it's worst, what chance has Joe Higgins and, every so often, Gregory Taylor? Joe got out on the streets like the activist he is - and let me just point out that while Bertie spends his wages on big house, fancy attire etc, Joe Higgins pays thousands of Euros to the SP AND to the various campaigns NOT run by the Socialist Party on behalf of the working class people of Ireland.

That the tax has been voted on at the bracket which was declared the lower bracket in the initial government planning stage was due to the objections of the Socialist Party and other left wing groups.

If you wish to sit and pay the tax, fine, that's your prerogative, but damn anyone of you that condemns Clare Daly, a women who is now separated from her child for a month, for standing up for her beliefs and her constituents beliefs in the only feasible manner that was open to them. Damn anyone of you who condemns Joe Higgins, one of the few remaining TD's who spends his time not in the bureaucratic centres of Dublin but making damn sure he is representing his constituents.

This is not ultimately about some stupid tax - the government of the Republic has introduced so many taxes in the last four years that I have lost count. The creation of a double taxation is preparation for a privatisation that will make no dent in the governmental coffers while at the same time, farming out the public sector waste collection to a private company who will cut workers wages and deplete the service.

Make snide comments all you will, and know that this is a fight that more than likely the Socialist Party and the people of Dublin and especially Fingal cannot win, despite the two hundred people that turned up to a Socialist Party march in Swords and the many more that turned up to the other marches but we are damned if we will allow an attack on the representatives of our party to go unanswered when clearly both the initial High Court order and the arrest were political gestures made by the establishment, a function as old as democracy itself.

irishman_abroad

Quick question


How many people here are directly affected by the bin tax? ie actually have to pay not parents etc

I am and I just want to have my rubbish collected, its been three weeks now that the protestors have blocked the trucks in my area(Blanchardstown), what makes it worse is

1. I saw a bin truck stopped on the way out of another estate, ie they had let them take thier own rubbish and then stopped it. And

2. Some w@nker actually went around ripping up the tags of people who had paid. Now theyre just lucky I wasnt there, coz one of us was gonna get arrested.

Éomer of Rohan

Quoted from irishman_abroad
How many people here are directly affected by the bin tax?

Everyone who owns a bin and has what the government deems to be the resources to pay the double tax.

Quoted from irishman_abroad
Some w@nker actually went around ripping up the tags of people who had paid. Now theyre just lucky I wasnt there, coz one of us was gonna get arrested

Nothing to do with us - I agree with your assessment; they were scum out looking to cause trouble - but the slogan stands with respect to the stopping of Bin Trucks - All or None. As for the stopping of a bin truck after it had picked up rubbish - did it occur to you that the people stopping it were those who had not had their rubbish collected? That would make a good deal more sense.

SkepticOne

Originally posted by Éomer of Rohan
Make snide comments all you will, and know that this is a fight that more than likely the Socialist Party and the people of Dublin and especially Fingal cannot win, despite the two hundred people that turned up to a Socialist Party march in Swords and the many more that turned up to the other marches but we are damned if we will allow an attack on the representatives of our party to go unanswered when clearly both the initial High Court order and the arrest were political gestures made by the establishment, a function as old as democracy itself.

It is fine to protest against the Higgins jailing provided such protesting is within the law, imo. Ultimately, of course, the thing that matters is votes, not marching.

irishman_abroad

I meant here in this discussion

Éomer of Rohan

Quoted from Skeptic One
It is fine to protest against the Higgins jailing provided such protesting is within the law, imo. Ultimately, of course, the thing that matters is votes, not marching

We protested against the Higgins jailing and and my demonstration anyway, it was within the law certainly. However, I fail to see why people are not accepting that the Courts are no place to fight a political battle and therefore that the ruling against the protestors who I insist on pointing out were not all or even mostly socialists is unfair and wrong.

SkepticOne

But Joe Higgins chose to block those trucks. He chose to bring his protest into the court system.

Éomer of Rohan

Joe blocked the trucks as the only possible effective measure of halting the bin tax and mobilising the working class against an attack on their rights and (some section) of their jobs. It was Fingal County Council and the delightful Mr Dolphin who took the steps to court.

Éomer of Rohan

....and more to the point, the action was taken specifically against Joe and Clare above all others simply because they already have a high political profile. Several pther protestors were jailed and the final proof that this was a political tactic of using the courts will come on Monday when we see the action the Garda don't take against the protests minus pertinent political and community figures when they come to collect the Bin trucks as no doubt they will. This, despite the fact that they have an order to arrest ANYONE interfering.

RainyDay

Originally posted by secret_squirrel
Yea so that means for the biggest part of 25 years we havent had to pay local taxes (and presumably national taxation increased at that time)

Check the facts, secret_squirrel. I'm old enough to have paid income tax rates of 56% in the mid/late 1980's. Rates have been gradually dropping to the current level of 42%.

Originally posted by Éomer of Rohan
what the government deems to be the resources to pay the double tax

Enough already of the 'double tax' myth. There is no double taxation. There is full tax relief available on waste charges.

Originally posted by Éomer of Rohan
for standing up for her beliefs and her constituents beliefs in the only feasible manner that was open to them.

So there was no option available to Joe/Clare other than stopping the bin collections? How about trying the approach of other democratic politicians and gathering support from a majority of the population for their ideas, or would this be out of the question?

Originally posted by Sparks
I'm not even sure that that's true in the first place [...]
so lumping another local tax onto the bill without tax relief on the income tax is simply out of the question.

Congrats, sparks - two factual errors in one post.
Income tax rates in Ireland are one of the lowest in Europe. Check out this PriceWaterhouseCoopers report

A single person earning €35,000 in Ireland brings home a higher net income than his counterparts in the UK, Germany, France and Belgium, after adjusting for the cost of living differentials between the various countries.
A single person earning €75,000 in Ireland is also generally better off in after-tax terms than his EU counterparts, with the exception of the UK. This Irish worker is currently bringing home 65% of his earnings after tax/social security (again adjusted for cost of living), which compares favourably with Germany (51%), France (61%), the Netherlands (60%) and Belgium (47%).

Also, note that tax relief is (and has always been available) on wast charge payments.
But don't let the facts get in the way of a good rant.

Sparks

Originally posted by RainyDay
Congrats, sparks - two factual errors in one post.

Last time I checked, saying that you weren't sure something was true didn't count as a factual error, but as critical thinking.

Income tax rates in Ireland are one of the lowest in Europe. Check out this PriceWaterhouseCoopers report

An Irish worker with this level of income is paying around 23 cents out of every euro that he earns in tax/social security. On the other end of the scale, a worker in Belgium who is earning the same salary is paying more than 40% of his earnings in taxes, although admittedly almost one-third of this is represented by social security charges, which deliver significantly greater benefits than the Irish equivalent.

*ahem*
In other words, we take home more, but they get better quality of life.
Plus, nowhere in there do I see reference to the fact that our inflation is twice the eurozone standard (the highest in the eurozone at present and well ahead of even the nearest competitor), our living costs are high enough to be silly, and morgages eat up massive amounts of take-home pay. Well. Not till the last paragraph, which reads:

Personal tax rates should not, however, be looked at in isolation - other factors such as cost and availability of housing, the level of indirect taxes (e.g. VAT, local service charges, wealth taxes etc.) must also be considered when making such comparisons, as these will impact on an individual's overall disposable income and purchasing power. Also, there are certain differences in the way in which countries fund for medical and pension benefits, which make it difficult to conduct an entirely accurate comparison.

In other words, you cannot take that report and use it to justify the bin charges by saying we have lower income taxes.

Also, note that tax relief is (and has always been available) on wast charge payments.
But don't let the facts get in the way of a good rant.

Care to reread my post? I said tax relief was available, but only 38 euros worth, and that pays for water rates. So you are being double-taxed.
Why is it that I can specifically state I'm trying to forestall an argument, state the response, and still it get's ignored and I wind up writing this kind of post anyway?

And now, where were those two factual errors in my original post again?

RainyDay

Hi Sparks - The two errors were;

1)

I'm not even sure that that's true in the first place

in relation to the comment "We are not heavily taxed compared to EU tax rates."
It is true.

2)

But we've already paid for it in income tax, so lumping another local tax onto the bill without tax relief on the income tax is simply out of the question.

There is tax relief on the waste charges.

Boston

rainyday, your wrong about the taxes. When you say we are not heavily taxed compared with most other european countries, you should say direct taxes. We pay some of the lowests rates of direct taxes and some of the highest rates of indirect taxes. As for tax relief, not everyone can clam that.

Sparks

Originally posted by RainyDay
Hi Sparks - The two errors were;
1)
in relation to the comment "We are not heavily taxed compared to EU tax rates."
It is true.
2)
There is tax relief on the waste charges.

Okay, but 1) was incorrect as I said "I'm not sure that's true" as opposed to "That's wrong", and 2) is wrong because there is no tax relief on the bin charges, there's a small tax relief on local authority charges, which is normally taken by water charges. So there is no tax relief specifically for bin taxes, and the level of general tax relief is tiny anyway - 38 euros from what I've read.

Éomer of Rohan

Quoted from Rainy Day
So there was no option available to Joe/Clare other than stopping the bin collections? How about trying the approach of other democratic politicians and gathering support from a majority of the population for their ideas, or would this be out of the question?

Several points to be raised.

A fair size of the population is politically apathetic.

Gathering mass support that rises to the million mark or above doesn't seem to work these days in supposedly democratic nations.

In order to reach any potential supporters, they need to reach them via the radio, the newspapers and they needed an inspiring gesture to enliven the population - stopping the bin trucks, backed by the working class of Fingal was just that.

Any politician who is anti-establishment has several things set against him or her and the first is the whole establishment itself, from Fingal County Council where Ms Daly was shouted down to the Dail itself where several TD's are seeking to censor Joe Higgins.

No amount of doing this 'by the book' would have mattered a damn and Joe would have been overridden, not by the will of the people but by the sheer apathy and laziness of many of the people and by the media spin put on the whole issue with phrases such as 'political grandstanding' being bandied around.

Cork

Originally posted by Éomer of Rohan


This is not ultimately about some stupid tax - the government of the Republic has introduced so many taxes in the last four years that I have lost count. The creation of a double taxation is preparation for a privatisation that will make no dent in the governmental coffers while at the same time, farming out the public sector waste collection to a private company who will cut workers wages and deplete the service.

People outside Dublin have been paying refuse charges for years. Why all this publicity in Dublin? It is about time Dublin people copped on.

In my area - private company collects refuse. If people want they waste collected they have to pay for it.

Joe Higgins & Co are ignoring the point that private companies in many areas collect refuse. Is the government to start collecting rubbish up every boreen in the country?

I think that we have a dependency culture - people expect water, housing, roads, lighting, sewerage etc from local authories without paying any thing for it. Business pay rates. Business pay for refuse. Yet the private indivual should get their refuse collected for free?

Each year a rate is struck - Why should business make up a shortfall of people not paying for their refuse?

If people don't want a service - they should not pay for it. Look at the local taxes in the UK under the socialists.

The whole double taxation rate ignores a number of facts:
Bin Charges are tax deductable.
The Polluter Pays Principle - The government should pay to dispose of rubbish in xyz estate?
Waiver schemes for OAPs and those on social welfare operated by certain local authories.

When the smoke clears - people don't want to pay for their rubbish to be disposed.

Nobody wants to pay tax - but services need to be provided. General taxation should not be raised to pay for bin changers refuse.

Tax rates today are much lower than they were when the socialists were in power with FG. Socialits across the EU have supported local taxes. The EU seemingly supports even the notion of water taxes.

If general taxation was to pay for every thing our taxes would be similar to those say in Sweeden.

Does Joe Higgins & Co want this? He should have been fined. The IFA were a number of years ago for their blockade of meat factories.
The state are paying for his month in prison. That is the PAYE worker .

joe bloggs

whats the problem why dont people pay for rubbish collections nearly every other county around ireland pays rubbish charges and all the jobs are in dublin so there should have no problems paying for rubbish do dublins pay for their water ??? i agree with Cork

Éomer of Rohan

That is the most outrageous crap I have read since reading the Irish Times earlier today.

Quoted from Cork
Tax rates today are much lower than they were when the socialists were in power with FG. Socialits across the EU have supported local taxes. The EU seemingly supports even the notion of water taxes.

There are socialists and there are social democrats or social reformists. I suggest you learn the difference between them. Trying to blanket ANY form of socialist movement with Fine Gael displays nothing short of ignorance.

People outside Dublin pay water charges too from what I hear - does the fact that it exists, does the fact that it is the status quo mean it is right? No.

If victorious in Dublin, why not a national campaign? Though of course, there is no way in hell that the government will back down, simply none - especially not after the comments of the Irish Environment minister in todays papers.

Quoted from Cork
I think that we have a dependency culture - people expect water, housing, roads, lighting, sewerage etc from local authories without paying any thing for it. Business pay rates. Business pay for refuse. Yet the private indivual should get their refuse collected for free?

Business produces a greater amount of waste than the total domestic waste per annum for Ireland and yet businesses can apply for tax rebates. What utter s**t. Business are the major polluters, they should pay. The Irish people pay their bit through the rates and through an extra cent or two on their income tax.

If a dependency culture means that we do not trust our government and we are willing to defy them as is our responsibility in a democracy, in a non-violent and valid manner then I am proud to say that some people do take that attitude.

In short Cork, if you don't want to pay a specified bin tax, then get your ass out on the street and do something about it, otherwise, allow the people who actually care, whether from Dublin or not, to get on with it - and for that matter, many of the crowds in Dublin today were not FROM Dublin but were from other parts of the Irish Republic in rejection of the system that was forced on them by a government that is corrupt by any standards.

Biffa Bacon

Joe Higgins and Clare Daly went to jail because they broke the law. They can't have any complaints, unless they consider themselves above the law.

Sparks

Cork,

People outside Dublin have been paying refuse charges for years. Why all this publicity in Dublin? It is about time Dublin people copped on.

In other words, you're so pissed off at the idea that it'd be a dublin area that protests first, that you'd rather everyone suffer rather than fixing the situation?
Tell me Cork, does the expression cutting your nose off to spite your face mean anything to you?
:rolleyes:

In my area - private company collects refuse. If people want they waste collected they have to pay for it.

Ditto here. The difference is we can shop around and get a good price. And it's still unfair - if you're going to pay for it from taxes, you ought to be giving tax relief for people that either pay private companies or those that pay their local council. Otherwise, you're paying money to central government to pay for a service that isn't provided to you and which you're paying someone else to provide as well.

I think that we have a dependency culture - people expect water, housing, roads, lighting, sewerage etc from local authories without paying any thing for it.

Wrong. That's not what is being protested, it's not what's happening, and if you honestly think that that's the case, you don't understand the situation and should go learn about it before posting again.

Business pay rates. Business pay for refuse. Yet the private indivual should get their refuse collected for free?

And you think that Businesses should be treated like individuals? So tell me Cork, how many votes should a company get? How much tax should they pay?
Companies operate under different rules than individuals for a reason and it's highly disingenous (or just stupid) to use those different rules as an argument as you just did.

If people don't want a service - they should not pay for it.

Amen.
Now, given that the people paid for the bin removal in their income taxes, and then didn't get the service, what do you recommend?
Suing the government?
And who'll pay for that then?

The whole double taxation rate ignores a number of facts:
Bin Charges are tax deductable.

Wrong. They're not. Did you read the posts I put up before you put yours up?
BIN CHARGES ARE NOT TAX DEDUCTABLE!!!

The Polluter Pays Principle - The government should pay to dispose of rubbish in xyz estate?

Nope. Local taxes and the polluter pays principle are the best and fairest ways to pay for waste removal - but when you are forced to pay central government for the service first, why the hell would you pay someone else to provide it as well???

Waiver schemes for OAPs and those on social welfare operated by certain local authories.

Whoop. That's what we call a social obligation Cork - it's not something to hold over the heads of people you're screwing with double taxation, it's something you're obliged to provide.

When the smoke clears - people don't want to pay for their rubbish to be disposed.

Wrong. They don't want to pay twice.

Tax rates today are much lower than they were when the socialists were in power with FG.

As I recall, tax rates had to be high then because of the f*cked-up mess that FF left the economy in with their financial ineptitude. Not because of FG or Labour.

yankinlk

Been reading this a while and just want to state I agree with cork - people out side of dublin like us think you all are nuts.

you are being asked to pay less than us to have the rubbish that you create collected. We want the system you are fighting to be offered here (limerick for example) - if i make rubbish, i pay for it. Currently if i go on vacation i still pay.

I would be happy to support joe and his followers if they were fighting for something that makes sense like "more recycling" .

I recently switched to a bin company that only charges me for my waste NOT MY RECYCLING and now i pay less (tipperary) because my rubbish bin is only collected every two weeks. While at first I was skeptical I have found that my recycling bin is twice as full as my rubbish bin. I hope they eventually offer me the choice of only collecting my rubbish once a month now.

therecklessone

Originally posted by Sparks


Wrong. They're not. Did you read the posts I put up before you put yours up?
BIN CHARGES ARE NOT TAX DEDUCTABLE!!!

Sparks, I suggest you read the following...

Tax relief on domestic service charges

A small excerpt:

Originally quoted by www.oasis.gov.ie


Tax relief is available if you pay local authority and other service charges in Ireland. This relief is granted to those who pay their service charges in full and on time in the previous calendar year. The decision as to whether or not you have paid your charges in full and on time is a matter for your local authority to decide.

From 2002, there is no restriction on the amount of tax relief that is allowable except when you purchase "tags" from an independent contractor or from your local authority. In this instance (i.e., where you purchase "tags", the amount of tax relief you can claim is restricted to 195 euro per year).

You will not obtain any tax relief when paying arrears for domestic service charges.

All the various service charges that you pay to your local authority for the following services qualify for tax relief:

1. Provision of domestic refuse collections, domestic sewage disposal and domestic water supplies from your local authority
2. All service charges paid by you to group water schemes for domestic water supplies and,
3. All service charges paid to independent contractors for domestic refuse collection.

Also try the following link from the Revenue Commissioners.

Revenue

Quite simply, you are wrong. Now stop shouting.