98.3% January 27, 2012
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Economy, Irish Politics, The Left.trackback
That’s the figure of those who haven’t paid the household tax quoted last night at a campaign meeting on North Strand [of which more later]. Even if it’s gone down a little that’s still an huge figure and although the big guns of government will no doubt be trained on the electorate ['we all partied' - natch] it provides a strong basis for the current campaign. Is there some way of finding out online what the figure is on a continuous basis?
I’ve yet to pay it and have discussed it with a number of people and have only met the one person who has paid it.
The crowds at meetings are meant to be large. Many of the meetings in my neck of the woods are at venues not normally associated with ‘protest’ meetings be it the local GAA club or pub.
“Is there some way of finding out online what the figure is on a continuous basis?”
WbS, I suspect the gov’t press office will circulate the number if it suits them to do so, and the mainstream media will give it plenty of coverage in the run up to the March 31st registration deadline.
Equally, the campaign against the household charge will no doubt quote the number of its signed up members who have pledged not to register, again if the numbers are flattering. It’ll be a media battle for sure. In fairness, to date at least the media have given coverage to the campaign, it isn’t being ignored. While the sheer scale of the state-wide campaign is clearly a factor, kudos must also be given to the 9 TDs who raised the profile of the campaign by combining their voices in opposition to the charge, that event really put the campaign onto the radar.
One regrettable aspect of this is SF’s separate fudging campaign of “we’re not going to pay this personally but then again we’re also not encouraging non-payment”. This will sow confusion in people’s minds for sure and will detract from the momentum behind the “don’t register, don’t pay” campaign. There are mixed reports coming in from different areas on the attitude of local SF, some adding private support to the campaign, others being disruptive. It’s a mess waiting to happen, and those who play political football with this issue will not be thanked for it.
And on the Meath campaign, we had our first county-wide activists meeting last night in Navan ahead of two public meetings in the next fortnight, kicking off with Kells next Wednesday 1 Feb to be followed by Navan on Thursday 9 Feb.
saw this on politics.ie a graph of traffic for the household charge site. Traffic seems to be dwindling
http://traffic.alexa.com/graph?&w=400&h=220&o=f&c=1&y=r&b=ffffff&n=666666&r=1m&u=householdcharge.ie&
I think RTE are running scared on this one. They had a recent report on their News site which stated that 500 attended a protest on the septic tank charge. They also carried a report on the 200 who attended a meeting in Dalkey about off-shore drilling (of course meetings concerning the residents of Dalkey are of national importance, I’ll have you know!!), but so far I haven’t seen anything about individual Household Tax meetings taking place nightly across the country even though hundreds are attending these meetings and ten of thousands must have attended meetings so far. From RTE scarcely a peep.
I think that, in the end up, many many people will not pay the charge, but the funny thing is, I dont think the Government will give a fiddlers fart.
Its a charge with a shelf life of a year, give or take, and the finance accrued is for the local authorities, not for central government. Making life difficult for local authorities would in fact be in Hogans interest, who would have no difficulty in shutting down a council or two should it fail to pass a budget.
On a point of interest perhaps, if in the (highly unlikely imo) event that the government does bring people to court for this, might be worth considering to plead your case as Gaeilge. The act governing the charge has yet to be translated, and as such, you will have been denied your constitutional right to have the case heard in Irish. Case would likely be thrown out (though I fancy that they will translate it shortly enough to avoid that scenario!!)
It even appears that some of those who have registered are not obligated to pay, so the income to date is even less than 2%.
“I think RTE are running scared on this one. They had a recent report on their News site which stated that 500 attended a protest on the septic tank charge. They also carried a report on the 200 who attended a meeting in Dalkey about off-shore drilling (of course meetings concerning the residents of Dalkey are of national importance, I’ll have you know!!), but so far I haven’t seen anything about individual Household Tax meetings taking place nightly across the country even though hundreds are attending these meetings and ten of thousands must have attended meetings so far. From RTE scarcely a peep.”
Well, the sceptic tank protest was at Leinster House, whereas the tax meetings are in different places (as in: one was spoon-fed to RTÉ, the other would require a bit of travel on their part).
A further point that could affect the coverage is how the organisers of the various protests and campaigns engage with the media — do they issue a press release; or do they notify the regional or subject correspondent, for example?
[That said, I'd bet that even the most professional of media operations by some groups would come second to a vital national issue in Dalkey every time
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