Galway: household charge non-payment lead to reduction in services

antoobrien · 14-08-2012 10:15AM

golfwallah wrote: »

YExamples are:

Expensive services like road networks, policing, ambulance services, long lines for telephone services, etc. that would not be affordable if the low numbers in rural areas had to pay for them themselves.

These services are funded by taxes like Income Tax, the Universal Social Charge, VAT, Commercial Rates and, latterly, the Household Charge plus the likes of “Universal Service Obligation” charges on our telephone bills.

That both misleading and disingenuous. Country people pay more in development fees, connection fees and capital costs to get any services. Then there's the motor tax (which is used to fund local services) and excise that they pay, which will naturally be higher than most city based people (especially considering half of Dublin City apparently doesn't own a car).

The only service that is flat rate (last time I heard) is the phone line. For services like the electricity connection and water there is some subsidy but the homeowner is usually paying at least half the fees for getting the services out, if not the full cost (e.g. the case where a well has to be dug).

In towns the "contribution" paid is far lower - if any is paid at all. E.g. I can't find a published cost to connect a dwelling to the sewage systems in Dublin or Galway, however if one was to build a septic tank the cost would be in the thousands.

Sleepy · 14-08-2012 11:12AM

Aye, and given the differences in property prices, urban dwellers would pay more in stamp duty for an equivalent house, as will most likely be the case with any equitable property tax.

You're sort of missing the point RE connection fees for electricity, telephony and water. If it weren't for social solidarity these connections simply wouldn't be available for rural dwellers as, high and all as the connection fees are, no private company would be able to provide them at a commercially viable level due to the higher maintenance costs for the supply lines per customer, higher initial investment in infrastructure etc. The point in case here, as I mentioned higher up, is NTL/UPC. It's never been commercially viable for them to roll out their services to rural Ireland so their services remain unavailable outside of urban centres.

Then you have the factors that are realistically unquantifiable: the reduced noise, light and air pollution one benefits from living in a rural area, the increased social problems one faces in a city etc.

Urban v Rural living is swings and roundabouts and you don't get to simply opt-out of taxes because you don't agree with them. You do your civic duty and pay them and, if you want to see them changed: do your best to elect a representative who agrees with your estimation of those taxes as unfair (though, to be fair, given the whip system, this really means finding a representative of a party who disagree with the tax).

murphaph · 14-08-2012 12:21PM

antoobrien wrote: »

In towns the "contribution" paid is far lower - if any is paid at all. E.g. I can't find a published cost to connect a dwelling to the sewage systems in Dublin or Galway, however if one was to build a septic tank the cost would be in the thousands.

The developer of the estate has to pay a substantial charge for connection to the public system. This forms part of the cost of almost every urban dwelling.

An urban dweller has perhaps 5m of road per capita to maintain. A rural dweller perhaps several kilometres.

ESB is not just more expensive to install in rural areas, it is also much more expensive to maintain as undergrounding of supplies is not practical, so they are far more susceptible to the elements. The extra cost of maintaining rural ESB supplies is not borne by the rural dweller in reality. It is spread amongst us all.

galway2007 · 14-08-2012 03:57PM

n97 mini wrote: »

How many students and how many staff are in your kids' school? How much road frontage do you have? You receive post, electricity and a telephone service? Despite being in the country you have access to ambulance and fire services from the nearest big town? All of these are being subsidised by other people for you, and you ask them when are they going to pay for services they use?

Hold on now let’s go through them
In the school there are about 200 children (we both pay income tax)
Stamps are put on the post
Electricity there is a rural charge
Don’t have a phone and can't get broadband (15 miles from Galway city)
MY insurance will pay for fire service
My health insurance will pay for ambulance
Now who pays for city water, sewerage ect ???

galway2007 · 14-08-2012 04:06PM

Sleepy wrote: »

Aye, and given the differences in property prices, urban dwellers would pay more in stamp duty for an equivalent house, as will most likely be the case with any equitable property tax.

You're sort of missing the point RE connection fees for electricity, telephony and water. If it weren't for social solidarity these connections simply wouldn't be available for rural dwellers as, high and all as the connection fees are, no private company would be able to provide them at a commercially viable level due to the higher maintenance costs for the supply lines per customer, higher initial investment in infrastructure etc. The point in case here, as I mentioned higher up, is NTL/UPC. It's never been commercially viable for them to roll out their services to rural Ireland so their services remain unavailable outside of urban centres.

Then you have the factors that are realistically unquantifiable: the reduced noise, light and air pollution one benefits from living in a rural area, the increased social problems one faces in a city etc.

Urban v Rural living is swings and roundabouts and you don't get to simply opt-out of taxes because you don't agree with them. You do your civic duty and pay them and, if you want to see them changed: do your best to elect a representative who agrees with your estimation of those taxes as unfair (though, to be fair, given the whip system, this really means finding a representative of a party who disagree with the tax).

look the realiity is that billion's of euro is used to look after urban S**t and to supply them with water
It flush and go with them just like they think Milk comes from a bottle
For god sake some of them still think there wheele bin should be free

galway2007 · 14-08-2012 04:20PM

n97 mini wrote: »

How many students and how many staff are in your kids' school? How much road frontage do you have? You receive post, electricity and a telephone service? Despite being in the country you have access to ambulance and fire services from the nearest big town? All of these are being subsidised by other people for you, and you ask them when are they going to pay for services they use?

Also in relation to the school we all were asked to pay €150 a year for 3 years to build on a extra room to the school
The state did not even supply that service

runawaybishop · 14-08-2012 04:24PM

galway2007 wrote: »

Also in relation to the school we all were asked to pay €150 a year for 3 years to build on a extra room to the school
The state did not even supply that service

In fairness that's not limited to country schools.

John_Rambo · 14-08-2012 08:44PM

galway2007 wrote: »

look the realiity is that billion's of euro is used to look after urban S**t and to supply them with water
It flush and go with them just like they think Milk comes from a bottle
For god sake some of them still think there wheele bin should be free

It's actually the other way around Galway2007, look at the graph in the opening post. The urban centres are working their asses off making the money, paying the taxes. The rural county councils are sucking up the money.

Good to see areas being punished for non tax payments... I don't really like to see people avoiding taxes when I work my ass off and pay very high taxes. It's the same as refusing work and staying on the dole. Cheating.

n97 mini · 14-08-2012 10:05PM

galway2007 wrote: »

Now who pays for city water, sewerage ect ???

Look at the grants vs taxes in the chart above.

Sleepy · 15-08-2012 10:29AM

galway2007 wrote: »

Hold on now let’s go through them
In the school there are about 200 children (we both pay income tax)
Stamps are put on the post
Electricity there is a rural charge
Don’t have a phone and can't get broadband (15 miles from Galway city)
MY insurance will pay for fire service
My health insurance will pay for ambulance
Now who pays for city water, sewerage ect ???

So a school is being operated for a much smaller number of students than an urban school would have. Now, unless you're arguing against the principle of economies of scale, you have to admit that this will result in a higher cost per student than an urban school?

And the same value of stamp is put on a letter I send to someone in an urban area where each postal operative can cover far more houses. Ergo, my cheaper to deliver mail subsidises the cost of your more expensive to deliver mail.

You can get broadband: Qsat and others specialise in providing broadband to rural dwellers. It's not as good as what I get from UPC in Dublin and is probably more expensive but that perfectly illustrates my argument: it's more expensive to provide services to rural dwellers than urban ones.

Your insurance will pay for a call-out charge if you have to call upon the fire service so unless you're unlucky, you're not having to pay for the fact the service is available to you (i.e. the fire officers retainers, maintaining the equipment etc.) and, afair, the call-out charge is a flat fee regardless of whether your home is 500 yards or 50 miles from the station.. Even if you called them out the total call out charges collected do not fully cover the cost of providing the fire service.

Who pays for city water, sewerage etc? The local authority providing it. What finances those local authorities? Local business rates, water rates and funding from central government. I'm unsure of the basis, the allocation of that central funding is based on, however looking at the chart provided by JohnRambo above, it'd be fairly clear that whatever the basis, the councils in rural areas receive far more funding per capita than the urban ones (in fact Galway County would appear to receive 3 times the funding per capita that the City Council gets).

So, let me ask you: why should your decision to live in a rural area entitle you to equal services as those provided to those who live in rural areas when as it stands, it costs the state more to provide you with the (admittedly lower) levels of service you currently receive?

What do you think entitles you to pay less taxes than someone who has the same income as you but lives in an urban setting when you're already enjoying a larger share of government expenditure than they are?

Sleepy · 16-08-2012 09:28AM

Congratulations, you've managed to miss every post made that's explained to you why urban dwellers can be provided with such services and rural dwellers can't.

Before bitching and moaning about what urban dwellers get provided with, just try to imagine for a minute: what level of services would you be receiving if urban dwellers weren't subsidising rural services?

John_Rambo · 16-08-2012 10:48AM

Look, I could have built in a rural area with no facilities. I didn't, I bought a second hand house in a well serviced area with schools, trains, buses, parks, a beach etc... there were existing services there, electricity, sewerage, water etc...

If you decided to build in a badly serviced area you have to deal with it, people who work the land have done it for years. You're in the country now.

It's the same all over the world, the further you are away from infrastructure, the more you pay unless you have the gumption to go self sufficient.

The urban areas are making the money, they are paying their own way and already pouring money in to rural areas, so you have some cheek logging on to moan about cities like Galway, Kilkenny, Waterford and Dublin spending some of the money they earn on their own infrastructure.

If you failed to see a guaranteed rise in services, fuel etc... that's your fault, you cant expect everyone else to cover your bills.

galway2007 · 17-08-2012 09:50AM

John_Rambo wrote: »

Look, I could have built in a rural area with no facilities. I didn't, I bought a second hand house in a well serviced area with schools, trains, buses, parks, a beach etc... there were existing services there, electricity, sewerage, water etc...

If you decided to build in a badly serviced area you have to deal with it, people who work the land have done it for years. You're in the country now.

It's the same all over the world, the further you are away from infrastructure, the more you pay unless you have the gumption to go self sufficient.

The urban areas are making the money, they are paying their own way and already pouring money in to rural areas, so you have some cheek logging on to moan about cities like Galway, Kilkenny, Waterford and Dublin spending some of the money they earn on their own infrastructure.

If you failed to see a guaranteed rise in services, fuel etc... that's your fault, you cant expect everyone else to cover your bills.

I think you might have seen that the only sector booming in Ireland is the food sector so rural Ireland is paying it way.Milk does not come from a bottle.

I am not giving out about the services what Iam saying is we provide our own water, sewerage, and even the play park

But Galway county council waste so much money

1) They never pick up road sign after doingroad works

2) After doing a road a few weeks later theydig it up to put another cable or something down

3) They took out roundabout and put inlight's that made the traffic worse

Cut out the waste first before you startasking working people to give more tax when they can’t afford to pay the bills

creedp · 17-08-2012 11:52AM

John_Rambo wrote: »

Look, I could have built in a rural area with no facilities. I didn't, I bought a second hand house in a well serviced area with schools, trains, buses, parks, a beach etc... there were existing services there, electricity, sewerage, water etc...

If you decided to build in a badly serviced area you have to deal with it, people who work the land have done it for years. You're in the country now.

If you failed to see a guaranteed rise in services, fuel etc... that's your fault, you cant expect everyone else to cover your bills.

That's fine people in rural areas have no difficulty paying for services and in some cases they have no choice as they have to source them privately. Water, sewerage, bins, higher ESB rates, etc all have to be paid for. A water source has to be provided (by digging private well) and maintained using pumps etc all which have ongoing maintanance costs - electricity, repairs, etc. Its is therefore understandable that it costs more per unit of service in rural areas because of the economies of scale involved but again social solidarity would suggest that the sharing of the cost burden for essential services (electricity) is appropriate. However, I think if this argument holds true for rural dwellers then urban dwellers should be paying a reasonable charge for public services such as water and sewage .. it would abviously be a lower cost per unit than applies in rural areas but shouldn't be free! The polluter pays principle is used to justify a water charge, so it should also be used to justify a sewage charge!!

John_Rambo · 17-08-2012 02:05PM

creedp wrote: »

it would abviously be a lower cost per unit than applies in rural areas but shouldn't be free!

It isn't! The builders pass on the cost to the buyer.

galway2007 wrote: »

I think you might have seen that the only sector booming in Ireland is the food sector so rural Ireland is paying it way.Milk does not come from a bottle.

You're kidding me, the food sector is the only one bringing the cash in? What about the financial services, advertising, pharmacy etc... all cash cows. Rural Ireland is not paying it's way. The cities are paying it's way.

What's with the childish milk bottle thing? Are you that naive that you think city people believe this? Is it some sort of dig at me claiming I don't know anything about farms or something?

galway2007 wrote: »

we provide our own water, sewerage, and even the play park

And? Did you expect the tax payer to supply you with water, a sewerage system and a play park because you built a house in an isolated area ALONG with the heavily subsidised services you already avail of?

I agree with you regarding the County councils, our city council is improving, but there seems to be a prevailing laziness about them, badgering, emails and constant phone calls sometimes work, complaining to the council (not here) sometimes works.

galway2007 · 17-08-2012 02:56PM

John_Rambo wrote: »

It isn't! The builders pass on the cost to the buyer.

You're kidding me, the food sector is the only one bringing the cash in? What about the financial services, advertising, pharmacy etc... all cash cows. Rural Ireland is not paying it's way. The cities are paying it's way.

What's with the childish milk bottle thing? Are you that naive that you think city people believe this? Is it some sort of dig at me claiming I don't know anything about farms or something?

And? Did you expect the tax payer to supply you with water, a sewerage system and a play park because you built a house in an isolated area ALONG with the heavily subsidised services you already avail of?

I agree with you regarding the County councils, our city council is improving, but there seems to be a prevailing laziness about them, badgering, emails and constant phone calls sometimes work, complaining to the council (not here) sometimes works.

Do city people even know where there s**t go after they flush it?
Or the cost of treating it???

John_Rambo · 17-08-2012 03:04PM

galway2007 wrote: »

Do city people even know where there s**t go after they flush it?
Or the cost of treating it???

Yes, mine ends up in a processing plant in Ringsend. The cost was huge, but the citizens taxes paid for it.

Chips Lovell · 17-08-2012 03:04PM

galway2007 wrote: »

Do city people even know where there s**t go after they flush it?
Or the cost of treating it???

I expect they do know where it goes. Although as for costs, I doubt many would have an accurate cost per poo estimate. But what does this have to do with the discussion at hand?

fishy fishy · 17-08-2012 03:08PM

pixiebean22 wrote: »

Fire services? Do people in Galway not receive an invoice from the Fire Service for call out charges as is procedure in other counties?

400 Euro per hour (or part thereof)

antoobrien · 17-08-2012 03:44PM

Vladimir Kurtains wrote: »

I expect they do know where it goes. Although as for costs, I doubt many would have an accurate cost per poo estimate. But what does this have to do with the discussion at hand?

They do in Galway, Mutton Island was in the news for years because a few ecomentalists wanted to stop it (sounds familiar, doesn't it).

However in Dublin a good many people do not know where the sewage treatment works is. They only care that their waste leaves the premises they are using (home/work/other).

I got weeks of laughter out of a few dubs who swear blind that they thought there was a nationwide sewage system. The best one had to be the explanations for how a house that isn't on a mains (i.e. has a well) is part of this all powerful sewer system.

John_Rambo · 17-08-2012 04:37PM

antoobrien wrote: »

However in Dublin a good many people do not know where the sewage treatment works is. They only care that their waste leaves the premises they are using (home/work/other)

I don't really see why they HAVE to know where it goes to be honest.

Weeks of laughter? :-)

creedp · 17-08-2012 10:13PM

John_Rambo wrote: »

It isn't! The builders pass on the cost to the buyer.

What the builder factored in the future cost to the Council of treating urban dwellers sewage into the price of the house? Them are some sophisticated builders!!

n97 mini · 18-08-2012 01:09AM

galway2007 wrote: »

I think you might have seen that the only sector booming in Ireland is the food sector so rural Ireland is paying it way.Milk does not come from a bottle.

Irish farmers receive approx €2bn in subsidies, both from central govt and the EU, per annum. Strip those subsidies out and a lot of Irish farming is not sustainable.

John_Rambo · 18-08-2012 12:45PM

creedp wrote: »

What the builder factored in the future cost to the Council of treating urban dwellers sewage into the price of the house? Them are some sophisticated builders!!

I'm not sure if you misunderstood me or are pretending to misunderstand me!

The builder passes the cost of all the various connection fees to the buyer. The future cost is well covered by the cities citizens high taxes.

View · 20-08-2012 11:17AM

galway2007 wrote: »

3) They took out roundabout and put inlight's that made the traffic worse

Amm, where exactly was this roundabout (or roundabouts)?

Rural idylls usually tend to be light on roundabouts and traffic lights, yet you seem to have both.

You have spent a good chunks of your posts claiming your county doesn't provide you with any services yet road related works is unquestionably a service...

Galwayguy35 · 20-08-2012 07:38PM

View wrote: »

Amm, where exactly was this roundabout (or roundabouts)?

Rural idylls usually tend to be light on roundabouts and traffic lights, yet you seem to have both.

You have spent a good chunks of your posts claiming your county doesn't provide you with any services yet road related works is unquestionably a service...

Those roundabouts are in the city.

View · 21-08-2012 11:35AM

Galwayguy35 wrote: »

Those roundabouts are in the city.

Well, if they are in the City, then they are not examples of "waste by Galway County Council" as you claimed in your previous post.

It is basically up to each county (or county borough in the case of the cities) to decide what is best for its future growth not non-residents of the county or county borough.

Local roads are a matter for locals not "visitors" to the area. National Primary or Secondary roads are a different matter as the relelevant LA should be following national standards. Regional roads are presumably an "inter-county" matter subject to the relevant standards, if any, that exist.

As it is:
A) the city, as the diagram showed, is one of the few local authority areas that is a net contributor to the state - as such, it is subsidizing the net recipient local authority areas, so complaining about how it spends it's monies is a bit rich,

the Household Charge, you are being asked to pay, will not go towards paying for those road works, as you don't live there - so your HHC monies will not be "wasted" by the city,
C) your non-payment will however effect the delivery of services in your county which means all the things you have complained about in your locality will get worse.

galway2007 · 21-08-2012 04:30PM

poo meters must be put on all city toilets now Hogan

Galwayguy35 · 21-08-2012 06:42PM

View wrote: »

Well, if they are in the City, then they are not examples of "waste by Galway County Council" as you claimed in your previous post.

It is basically up to each county (or county borough in the case of the cities) to decide what is best for its future growth not non-residents of the county or county borough.

Local roads are a matter for locals not "visitors" to the area. National Primary or Secondary roads are a different matter as the relelevant LA should be following national standards. Regional roads are presumably an "inter-county" matter subject to the relevant standards, if any, that exist.

As it is:
A) the city, as the diagram showed, is one of the few local authority areas that is a net contributor to the state - as such, it is subsidizing the net recipient local authority areas, so complaining about how it spends it's monies is a bit rich,
the Household Charge, you are being asked to pay, will not go towards paying for those road works, as you don't live there - so your HHC monies will not be "wasted" by the city,
C) your non-payment will however effect the delivery of services in your county which means all the things you have complained about in your locality will get worse.

You might take that back because I didn't claim anything "in my previous post" as it was not me you were debating with. Ok?

unit 1 · 21-08-2012 08:23PM

galway2007 wrote: »

Do city people even know where there s**t go after they flush it?
Or the cost of treating it???

And do rural folk know where it goes when they visit towns and cities, or do they keep it in till they go home, without using any footpaths of course.

Galway: household charge non-payment lead to reduction in services

Comments