That Poll , The Household Charge and Anti Household Charge Posters on poles February 28, 2012
Posted by irishelectionliterature in Economy.trackback
A snotty little attack on the Household Charges Campaign
Cllr Richard Humphreys, the Labour Party Councillor for the Stillorgan Ward, has criticised the poster campaign by the “Campaign against the Household and Water Taxes”.
“Posters advocating non-payment of the household charge have begun to appear on poles around the County, urging people not to register or pay. There is something ironic if not ridiculous about the fact that the Anti-Charge campaign is using poles paid for by Council money and maintained by the Council in order to advocate non-payment of lawful charges to fund essential local government services.” Humphreys said.
After continues along the same lines and how its FF and The Greens fault we have the charge before finishing with ..
“It is also somewhat striking that the “Campaign against the Household and Water Taxes” is a somewhat shadowy organisation which does not list its members or committee conspicuously on its website. Nor does it publish on its website any rules or constitution which would show that its committee is accountable to its members. Its press releases are featured on a Socialist Party website and it gives every impression of being another vehicle for the cynical politics of the Ultra-Left Alliance.”
Shadowy?
As for the posters on poles argument … does he really think that the money raised will go to local services?
And speaking of the household tax, the detailed findings of that Sunday Times Behaviours and Attitudes poll are now online , all 73 pages of them.
Amongst the information and one that I missed in the paper was
Respondents were asked in today’s poll, whether they, or anyone else in their household, has already paid the €100 household charge.
This question was asked of all eligible voters aged 18 years+ and, by definition, would include some younger members of households who are likely to be unaware as to whether the head of household has or has not paid the charge.
Nevertheless, it is clear that the vast majority of Irish households have yet to pay the household charge.
Indeed, just one in ten of all Irish adults aged 18 years+ claim that either they or somebody else in the home has by now paid the charge – rising to just 1 in 8 of those aged 55+ years. This leaves a massive proportion of Irish households who, as of the end of February at least, have yet to pay the household charge.
Of most interest, however, is the fact that over a third of all of those voters living in households which have not yet paid the charge claim that they do not intend to do so.
44% state that they do intend to pay it, with a further 20% undecided.
I may be wrong but the Anti Household Tax movement hasn’t got the same coverage as the Septic Tanks. That said Nationwide Household Tax protests were covered on Saturdays RTE television news. They finished the report by saying that 120,000 households had registered so far. … No mention that it was ‘just’ 120,000 out of 1.7 million households.
Now another little bugbear here (and elsewhere) has been the constant lack of measurement in polls for the ULA or at least more than one of its parts.
This is the question asked about party support. The Workers Party are there but no ULA, no Socialist Party, no People Before Profit Alliance, no WUAG etc etc
The Cedar Lounge Revolution 
“Now another little bugbear here (and elsewhere) has been the constant lack of measurement in polls for the ULA or at least more than one of its parts.”
Yeah, especially when the poll report has Joe Higgins on the cover! Plus some random guy beside him who looks kinda familiar but I’m not sure if I can remember who he is – he isn’t in the Dail anyways.
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It’s really starting to look like a deliberate policy, isn’t it? You could understand why before the election, but now that the ULA has five TDs …
Even if you insist on measuring the member groups separately, there’s two each for SP and PBPA, so that’s as many as the Greens had until 2002, more than SF had until 2002, as many as the PDs had after 2007, more than the Greens have after 2011. Does anyone know when the pollsters started to count the Greens and SF as separate parties?
I wouldn’t count, by the way, on the whole of the ‘independent / other’ vote gravitating towards the ULA, far from it, but it’d be nice to know
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The ULA are surely bigger than the Greens, I wouldn’t mind but its not like this crowd are Red C or MRBI that have been going for years. As far as I know they’ve only done a few polls ,nearly all since the General Election, so there is no reason to leave out the ULA especially when you have The WP listed there.
Wouldn’t be surprised if they’d have The Christian Solidarity Party listed before they’d list the ULA down.
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Some points to refute the States argument on morning Ireland
Jackie Maguire on Morning Ireland – cue point [16:49]
http://qued.tv/25485
1. Jackie Maguire (JM) says the site activity is up 2 fold
FACT :The site traffic is in decline month on month
http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/householdcharge.ie#
alexa is like the TAM or JNLR of web traffic. external audience size
sampling based of browser toolbar user stats.
2. JM says that registrations seen “significant increase over the last
ten days”
not true
average day rate prior to Feb 20th was 2115
average day rate 20 – 27 Feb was 2937
That is a 0.3 fold increase. which is not significant.
3. JM & morning ireland talk of 1.6M needing to register. but
previously JM said and knows it is 1.8M
so they are not 1.4M off the total they are 1.66M off
4. JM says general trend is upward. true. but it only amounts to 30%
increase on extremely flat figures.
if there was a 1000% increase (ten fold) from now to March 31st then
there would still be 700,000 not registered.
And right now they have a 30% increase.
Projected non registered at current rate is 1,596,562 source
http://cahwt.net/calc/
yes rate will change and 1 week after the Government leaflet the
figures above show what that change will not do.
yes rate will increase much more. but is anyone seeing an increase
from 30% to 1000% or 1500% ?
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I was reading that there were issues too with the household charge site. Some people having difficulty registering, paying etc when actually on the site.
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GOOD
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It’s nothing short of lunatic to have the Workers Party, who haven’t held a Dail seat or threatened to do in donkey’s years, on the poll list without the Socialist Party and People Before Profit being there. Is it pure laziness I wonder or something more sinister?
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I looked at the Red C site and they don’t have samples of the questionnaires used , but it is very odd alright to have the WP included and not other parties that have Dail seats.
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It’s a weird one, alright. Separately, SP, SWP/PBPA, and WUAG are all below the Greens in terms of national support in the last election, but since (a) they actually hold Dáil seats and (b) are loosely grouped together, I don’t see why they’re not included. Even a ULA option would be good, and wouldn’t fall into the trap of having too many parties and diluting the result.
Why the WP is there is completely beyond me, and suggests laziness or inertia more than conspiracy.
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The WP are on their way back mate, have you never read Look Left?
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Eureka, need to keep up with the changing times how are WP on the up when they expel the most active member in Dublin, which has led to the resignation of the whole Dublin SE branch, and DC branch along with the walking away or non activity of most members in Dublin. Look Left is not a WP paper its one funded by the Party to reach to the broad left.
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Does that poll indicate the most likely class to pay is the working class/poorest(F)? Also that older people are most likely to pay?
In my experience, the most vehemently opposed and the biggest portion of attendees at meetings would fit that exact demographic.
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How did the Shinners do in this poll?
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Is this true? This Household Charge is a Statute.
A Statute is a “Legistated rule of society given the force of law by the consent of the governed.”( Blacks Law Dictionary 4th edition ).
Who are those it governs? Us, the public.
The Household Charge is a Statute, otherwise known as an Act of Government and only carries the force of law upon you if you consent to it which means that your legally obliged to pay if you consent or in other words go on to
Household charge. ie and register.
Your silence and inaction will also give the appearance of consent.
If you do not consent, a Statute cannot affect you what so ever.
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It is not true.
The Campaign Against Household & Water Taxes has sought a legal opinion on this from a barrister and the answer was “it’s bullshit”.
That “statute” thing is put about by an extreme right-wing group, the Freemen. It is nonsense in legal terms.
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No it’s not true in any way, shape or form.
This is gibberish emanating from “Freeman of the Land” conspiracy oddballs. These fruitcakes started out as an American milieu obsessed with the idea that American “Common Law” had been secretly replaced by “Admiralty Law” and that by some set of magical legal processes, you could avoid having to comply with modern laws. Most importantly, you could refuse to pay tax.
There are now a few of them in Ireland. Their beliefs make even less sense when transposed to Ireland, with it’s different legal history, but this sort of paranoia doesn’t really need to make sense. Here’s a very useful overview of the American incarnation of the movement from the Southern Poverty Law Centre:
http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-report/browse-all-issues/2010/fall/sovereign-citizen-kane
The Sovereign Independent mixes some Freeman ideas into its eclectic mix of crackpottery.
Huge numbers of people are refusing to pay their household tax: The registration deadline is nearly upon us and government figures have registration at about 14%. This is a big setback for the government and their right wing agenda, but people should be aware that they are engaged in civil disobedience and that there is not some legal magic formula involved.
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Well i wont be paying this new charge or should i say tax. A leaflet came into my postbox saying this charge is for a list of services that i dont use or dont have! I live in a rural area so no street lights thats one off the list! And as for other services thats a joke! My road is wrecked with potholes and i pay a tax on my car for them to be looked after !!!! Open spaces i have lots of fields around so i wont be taxed fot them!
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I have always been a Law abiding citizen, that until recently, I am still a Law abiding citizen, however I am now very, very cynical about the way the law is being used to threaten people who are not conforming in the opinion of this Bullying Government, I detest any form of Bullying being used by anybody.
In respect of the House tax/Charge, it should have been set up years ago and used to pay for our household services, as it is used for in other parts of Europe.
I always objected to Privatization as a recipe for making rich people richer and the poor people poorer, by extracting as much cash from them as is possible.
Privatization of facilities has not helped the Citizen in any aspect whatsoever, it has only subjected us to more expense and stress in our daily lives and God knows, we have too much stress as it is.
It is time to stop and re-invent the wheel, in respect of services here in Ireland.
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I always think that the emphasis on ‘choice’ as a part of privatisation leads to precisely what you say above, more expense and stress on the individual citizen. Recently I got a letter through the post from Greyhound with their pricing structure. I don’t give a toss about their pricing structure (except that its expensive). I want these things to be seamless, paid out of a combination of local and national taxation and not an issue I have to deal with. It doesn’t give me more power to have to deal with them, it gives me less.
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