Bin Tax War (Day 8): Bin Tax Battle Reaches Decisive Stage

dublin | bin tax / household tax / water tax | news report

Wednesday September 17, 2003 20:29

by socialist party

Good overall view of campaign so far from Socialist Party Site

By Mick Barry (Socialist Party, Cork)

BLOCKADES OF bin trucks, mass community protests and meetings, and the threat to jail anti-bin tax campaigners, including Socialist Party TD Joe Higgins, have featured in the last week. The Irish media openly state that the Socialist Party wield a key influence in the campaign.

The Irish Government is a coalition government comprised of Fianna Fail and the Progressive Democrats. It is an unpopular right-wing government which lied to the electorate to win last years’ General Election and has introduced harsh neo-liberal policies such as health cuts, stealth taxes and price hikes.

Under this Government, more than 80% of all income tax is collected from the working class under the PAYE (Pay As You Earn) system. Service charges such as bin tax represent double taxation. PAYE workers do not object to paying for the service but certainly do object to paying twice.

The agenda of the capitalist establishment is to defeat resistance to the bin tax, make the tax collectible, reintroduce the hated water charges and bring local taxation up to the 1000 euro a year mark. Already in towns such as Sligo local charges cost up to 520 euro per year.

In cities such as Limerick, where the Anti Bin Tax Campaign was defeated, a profitable refuse service was hived off to profiteers with job cuts, etc.. This too is part of the establishment agenda.

The Government and the Councils try to portray the tax as an environmentally friendly measure based on the principle that “the polluter pays”.

However, the point is that the polluter manifestly does not pay in this State. A couple of years ago total national waste came to 80 million tonnes. Of this, a mere 1.2 million tonnes was accounted for by household waste. Most of the rest was accounted for by big business and agriculture. Yet ordinary householders were hit with service charges and big business was rewarded with the lowest corporate tax rates in Europe.

The Anti Bin Tax Campaigns have spent three years patiently building a strong non-payment campaign. Before the Dail (Irish Parliament) broke up for their long Summer break the Government rail-roaded the Protection of the Environment Act 2003 through, overturning a previous court ruling that Councils were legally obliged to collect all waste and paving the way for non collection of non payers waste.

The first Council to implement the non-collection policy was Fingal County Council in North and West Dublin. The Fingal area includes the area which elected Socialist Party TD (MP) Joe Higgins to the Dail and Fingal Council includes two Socialist Party Councilors, Clare Daly and Ruth Coppinger.

In the Fingal area the Bin Tax is paid through a 5 euro a week tagging system. From Wednesday 10th September Fingal ordered that untagged bins where to be left uncollected.

The Fingal Anti Bin Tax Campaign raised the slogan “Collect all bins or none” and decided to try and blockade trucks that refused to collect all bins. Blockades on Day One saw hundreds of residents blocking trucks, organising food and drink for protestors (and bin workers) and attending community meetings. In one estate a street meeting of more than two hundred people was held.

In order to intimidate the protestors, the Gardai (police) took names and addresses and threatened to use the far reaching Public Order Act.

Action was stepped up in Fingal when residents of the Royal Oak Estate in Santry decided to blockade a bin truck and hold it indefinately. We are now on Day Six of that blockade. The Santry example was followed in other areas and at one stage three trucks had been seized undoubtedly others would have been confiscated but for the fact that the Council abandoned bin collection in working class estates knowing full well the consequences should they have done so. Currently two trucks are being held after a brutal Garda raid resulted in a truck being taken back in the Corduff area.

As other Councils tentatively start or plan to start non-collection a wave of mass protest meetings have been held across the City, some attended by more than six hundred people.

The Council have replied to the blockades by obtaining a High Court injunction and serving it on fifteen campaigners, ten of them members of the Socialist Party (including Joe Higgins TD and Councillors Clare Daly and Ruth Coppinger). The fifteen are due in front of the High Court on Wednesday, September 17th. The injunction will not stop people participating in the protests so arrests and jailings are on the cards if not on September 17th then perhaps shortly afterwards.

This is at the same time that millionaire tax dodgers have been found to have cheated the tax man of a small fortune by hiding money in offshore Ansbacher bank accounts. Not a single Ansbacher Man has seen the inside of a prison cell.

Jailings would represent a serious escalation of the bin tax battle as will the spread of non-collection and protests to the other Council areas in the days ahead.

In the event of Jailings emails and protest letters should be sent to:

Fingal County Council at [email protected] and copies to [email protected]

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Comments (8 of 8)

perhaps this shoud be moved as a comment to the article below?

by Kev

Wed Sep 17, 2003 20:55

please don't move it anywhere. copy it if you want. but leave it here,

by !!!

Wed Sep 17, 2003 21:28

It is a well written account of the campaign with sensitivity to foreign readers.
well done!

pay the charges

by P. Carr - none

Thu Sep 18, 2003 15:09

some facts
The present coalition are unpopular but were yet democratic by a landslide and probably have fair amount of the porportion of the TDS in the Fingal area. Whereas as i think the socialist party have a measly one TD.
What sane working class people voting for right wing capatalist parties? NEVER!
PAYE is as much a middle class tax as a working class tax.
The polluter pays and rightly so.
£5 euro per week not a bad price for getting your rubbish removed. Many on social welfare dont even have to pay this fee. What do you propose higher income tax to pay for this service or perhaps those nebulous workers councils will come around and do it for us. Everybody else pays why shoudnt you?in my opinion by sanctifying those who dont pay you are promoting bad citizenship.

re: P carr

by Andrew

Thu Sep 18, 2003 15:32

see my reply under the 'service charges con' thread at http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=61152

Re: pay the charges

by Terry

Thu Sep 18, 2003 15:56

There seems to be an implicit argument by the council, government and those in favour of paying that the introduction of the refuse charges represents the start of a 'Polluter Pays Principle' and is part of solving the waste crisis.

There couldn't be nothing further from the truth. First off domestic waste accounts for a very small fraction of the total quantity of waste generated in this country, yet we will be taking the lion's share of the burden.

Second, there was no mechanism put in place to encourage the reduction of domestic waste at source via the excessive packaging bought at the supermarkets and other retailers. At the moment items with MORE packaging actually cost less than items with less packaging. Believe me, I have numerous times in my local supermarket sought out the item with the least packaging, only to find time and time again, it is a few euros more expensive.

The recycling infrastructure currently in place is totally insufficient. The government have no intention of allowing recycling to succeed. But they are pulling out all the stops, in terms of clearing the way in planning etc, for the construction of 6 incinerators in this country. Incineration is not a solution, although the debate has consistently been managed so that we only hear: 'Landfill vs Incineration'

The tax system, if implemented properly and there wasn't so many tax amnesties, is far more equitable than a flat rate refuse charge system, which in the hands of private industry will rise anywhere up to about 600 euros a year, (as recommended as the upper ceiling in a secret government document) and where in Sligo it's already in the 500 bracket.

The government are trying to pull the wool over people's eyes with regard to the waste crisis. It will not reduce the amount of waste, it will not solve the waste crisis and it is not a fair system. It is regrettable that so many people cannot see through this charade.

The new private waste industry is going to be worth hundreds of millions of euros to a select few multinational corporations. It is these entities that control governments in this age of ours, from the lobby and pressure groups to the right wing think-tanks, influencing and setting policy from the WTO level, to EU level and at national level through these instruments. It is these same corporations that control much of the media and thus give them huge leverage to control and mannipulate public opinion. It is these large corporations that are responsible for much of the destruction of the environment and the pillage of resources throughout the world. Yet we are told that's the way it is, this is democracy. Well that's a sick joke!

If we truly want an equitable system, why not introduce a deposit system for glass bottles and cans. Why not provde every house with compost bins. Why not put a tax of say 1c or 2c on excessive packaging. Why not provide more recycling facilities for other things like plastic bottles. The biggest plastic bottle recycling plant is actually in Ireland, (called Wellman International) and yet they import all their waste from Europe. There is virtually none here. And why if I go to the dump I have to pay to get in, to recycle say an old cooker or fridge?

This argument about paying regardless takes no account of all the other factors as outlined above.

probbaly wasting me time but anyway

by conor (wsm personal capacity)

Thu Sep 18, 2003 16:16

The excellent article forwarded by Mick
already makes this point abovebut just to re- emphasise for "P Carr" and others in the "cheap seats"

THE REAL POLLUTORS ARE SUBSIDISED BY SERVICE CHARGES

according to the National Waste Database Report Summary 1998 (most recent report available)

http://www.epa.ie/whatsnew/whatsnew.htm

(http://www.epa.ie/pubs/docs/Nat.%20Waste%20Summary.pdf) for the full pdf

house holders generated 1,220,856 tonnes out of 80,012,678 produced nationally or about 1.52% by my calculations

so why not tax those who generate the vast majority of the waste (industry and agriculture) -
As it stands the PAYE tax payer who ALREADY pays 60% of tax (directly and indirectly based on the Comptroller and auditor general's report 2000
the Comptrollor and auditor general's reporthttp://www.ireland.com/newspaper/special/2001/auditor27sep/auditorreport.pdf. - meantime corporation tax came to a measely 14%
and capital gains a laughable 2%) is now being asked to subsidise those who generate 98% of the waste

- they can stuff that !

Conor

The bin tax is equivalent to

The bin charges

by P. C

Thu Sep 18, 2003 17:22

A Flat tax rate is transparent and accountable one way or another you will pay for it.
If Tony O Reily household only creates the same amount of waste as a working class household why should he pay more?
The majority of Irish labour force and not just the rich benifitted from a reduction in the tax rates.also i never said dont tax agriculture and industry for the waste they produce. Tax them in porportion to the waste they create and create a type of system that rewards good enviromental practises (some of the ideas i read arent too bad).
Surely the task of collecting rubbish from every household every week in Dublin is an arduous and an expensive task and behoves individual householders to pay for it. You may dispute the price but i dont think you can deny the principal of paying for the service

flat rate taxation

by barry

Fri Sep 19, 2003 05:36

a flat rate taxation system might be the only way to get money out of the likes of o'reilly since he's resident in monaco (for tax purposes of course). maybe a flat rate of 50c on each piece of garbage produced at citywest and maybe a tax @ 4-5000% on their favorite luxury goods. how about an entry tax for blow-ins (for that's all P.C.s boss-man is) from tax havens, and maybe a tax on jet fuel to sting him on his way back out in the (tax efficient) private jet. Oh and let's not forget a flat rate hot air tax on the pontifications of foreign peers.

then again maybe all these punitative taxes would discourage such luminaries from gracing us with their presence causing us all to remain blissfully ignorant of "HOW THINGS REALLY WORK"

ye gads, the fear......

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Bin Tax War (Day 8): Bin Tax Battle Reaches Decisive Stage

Comments (8 of 8)