Opinion and Discussion: Household Charge.

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Is it possible to do a poll on AAM to see who has paid/intends to pay before the deadline and who does not? I've been watching one on boards.ie and I've always suspected the demography on that forum is very different to this but would just be interested to see the figures for something like the household charge.
 
Just saw this:

ENVIRONMENT Minister Phil Hogan has ordered city and county councils to set up teams of staff to call to the homes of people who refuse to pay the €100 household charge.
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Calling to your house now eh?

Luckily I stopped answering the door to strangers years ago.
 
I have to hand it to the anti Household charge campaign..There was a great turnout of 3000 people today..
 
thedaras said:
I have to hand it to the anti Household charge campaign..There was a great turnout of 3000 people today..
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Considering they booked a venue that only holds 2,000 that was a good turnout - it exceeded expectation anyway.

Besides, the anti HC campaign only needs one thing to be successful - people not to pay. They seem to be in the majority on that one.
 
Just thought I'd remind everyone:

If all public debt disappeared overnight and not one cent of interest had to be paid, the State would still need to borrow about €10 billion annually to meet existing spending commitments. (If the State ends up defaulting – and it may well come to that – the short-term impact would be much reduced if there were no primary deficit. For that reason, it is imperative that the primary deficit be closed as quickly as possible.)

Source:[broken link removed]

In the day to day running of the country we are spending €5,000 more per household than is raised in taxes. Whatever about the banking debt, this needs to be covered.

Do people really believe that spreading 2% of this shortfall evenly across each household is unreasonable? Who thinks that they shouldn't be obliged to contribute their fair share to the health, social protection, education, etc costs incurred by the state?

To answer about half the objections on this thread. No, you won't get better services from the state as a result of this charge. What you might get, however, is a less severe cut in the services we currently enjoy that we are not currently paying for.
 
I can't see the point in council employees knocking on doors. If the property is rented, it is not the tenant's responsibility to give out the owner's address, if he even knows it.
The assumption is that the door-knockers will already know who owns each house, but I thought the self registration requirement stemmed from the fact that this information is not already known.

This sounds like utter desperation.
 

The article is behind a paywall, so I can't comment specifically on this. One important point is the issue of borrowings. Does this figure of €10bn annually includes all borrowing and not just the specific spend on public services? So for example, does it include borrowing for roads and other projects?

The details of the fiscal treaty are interesting (all the measures are in the public domain as they're already committed to), but to just aim for no borrowing isn't always a sign of health or a good thing. States will always have to borrow and that's looked upon as a good thing as it demonstrates progression. My reading is that the fiscal measures portay this too.

The ultimate point then is if that €10bn per year is just to run the public sector or if it includes all projects, not all borrowing is bad.

On to the main debate, I'm not in favour of new charges or levies without some "tax neutral" programme in place. However, I've yet to really be convinced by the arguments from the "no" campaign as to why I shouldn't pay. This is some achievement as, being generous here, Hogan has been a disaster at handling this (so much so he may have a career working in PR for BP).

I want the services, whether I use all of them is up to me and or circumstance, chance, accidents and other unknowns, but I want them there and they have to be paid for and to be honest, for this year €2 a week isn't exactly too much.

As always there are issues with the mechanics of this. It should be ring fenced for LAs. The stamp duty issue is a complete red herring, I'm a first time buyer so I never paid it anyway, but I do have to pay management fees for having a house in an estate. As I see it, i'll be double paying for some of the services.
 
I only caught a bit of The Week in Politics last night but Joe Costello made a very good point about the fact that SF have no problem in collecting and indeed helping to increase the cost of the Council Tax in Northern Ireland yet are campaigning against a very minor charge down here.

Yet again SF are speaking out of both sides of their mouths, their record in Government up North bears no relation to how they campaign "down here", they are the very essence of partitionists!
 
Quote:
ENVIRONMENT Minister Phil Hogan has ordered city and county councils to set up teams of staff to call to the homes of people who refuse to pay the €100 household charge.
Click to expand...

Apart from the danger to the council staff who may be asked to collect money (they stopped collecting rent door to door years ago), I'm sure it won't take long for the first reports of bogus household charge collectors to emerge. Please warn elderly or vulnerable neighbours/relatives.
 
Latrade said:
Does this figure of €10bn annually includes all borrowing and not just the specific spend on public services? So for example, does it include borrowing for roads and other projects?
Click to expand...
http://www.finance.gov.ie/documents/exchequerstatements/2011/enddecexcheqstat.pdf
The total deficit was €25bn in 2011.

The bank bailouts were about €11bn (ILP €2.3bn, Anglo €3.1bn & Other €5.3bn).

Interest on our national debt was €4bn (including past bank bailouts, but primarily accumulated deficits from budget deficits).

That leaves €10bn - I guess this was what he was referring to.
 
How about those who are shouting so loud about the way the household charge is collected,let us know exactly how they think it should be collected?

They dont like to pay online,
They don't like having to register,
They shout about data protection when a suggestion that the ESB or such like could be used to get the information to house owners.
They want a leaflet.
They want an invoice...

They say some People don't have bank accounts,They have said its socially regressive..its a ruinous austerity policie,its reprehensible.

They say its unfair,Its unjust, The Government are going to go after utility bills and social welfare,they haven't received a leaflet,they dont know how to pay,they want an invoice..etc etc etc..

Seems to me that they are using vast amounts of energy on problems and zero on solutions!
 
And where do you think they should get the money to provide you with this basic service?
 
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