Archive News
False link between local services and house charge non-payment
Date Published: 08-Aug-2012
IT possibly comes as no surprise to many people that the Department of the Environment, Community and Local government would stoop to engage in a propaganda exercise at some point in 2012 to bolster its argument that local services in this country would suffer from a funding crisis, if householders did not pony-up the €160 million in Household Charges.
This propaganda exercise aired in the local media recently, suggests that Galway County Council, among others will be ‘forced’ by the government to cut funding to a number of local programmes, due to a proportion of householders withholding payment of the charge. This myth needs to be challenged.
It certainly may be the case that the Department is cutting funding to Local Authorities, but for it to state that cuts to services must happen because of the non-payment of all or part of each Council’s share of the Household Charge, is completely disingenuous.
Are they really telling us that, for example, housing grants for elderly and disabled people will be suspended? Or that the fire Service, litter control, housing and road maintenance will be affected?
Let’s not forget, it is the government which has linked this household charge to the funding of local services.
When one considers how unequal our tax system in this country is, this base propaganda becomes easily transparent. Credit Suisse, (Global Wealth Report – November 2011) reported that financial assets in Ireland make up 47 percent of total assets.
This means that out of €662 billion in total assets, using the latest CSO data, €311 billion is in financial assets and €351 billion is in non-financial assets. After financial liabilities of €194 billion, total net wealth is €468 billion. The wealthiest 1 percent holds €131.5billion in net assets and the wealthiest 5 percent holds €219.3 billion. Not a cent in wealth tax is being paid on these assets.
Every 1 percent tax on the wealthiest 5 percent of people in Ireland would bring in approximately €2 billion p.a. and a 5 percent tax would bring in €10 billion p.a.
In 2010, those earning over €100,000 p.a. earned approximately €20 billion and paid €4.86 billion in income tax, or just 24.3 percent of their gross income.
Because of the massive tax relief enjoyed by high earners, the use of minimum effective tax rates is a sure means of extracting additional tax from high earners.
This would require a scale of minimum effective tax rates on all income ranging from the current level of 30% as incomes exceed thresholds of €100,000, €150,000, €200,000 etc. The minimum effective rates may have to be as high as 60% for those earning above €300,000. There should be no increase in the effective tax rates of those with gross incomes below €100,000 p.a.
Through a combination of increased minimum effective tax rates and higher marginal tax rates, an extra €5 billion p.a. could be collected from those earning above €100,000 p.a.
There is wealth in abundance in this country, but not any political willpower to tap into its obvious potential to fund local services among other things. I suspect this FG⁄Labour government will continue to parade its propaganda in front of us pretending that the country is really broke, and that the burden of local services funding will have to be borne by those already blighted by unemployment, the Universal Social Charge and VAT increases etc.
In addition, the household Charge and the proposed property Tax take no account of whether a householder is unemployed, on a low income or has a high mortgage. Let’s open our eyes and not allow this pretence to succeed.
People’s living conditions less than 100 years ago were frightening. We have come a long way. We talk about water charges today, but back then the local District Councils were erecting pumps for local communities and the lovely town of Mountbellew, according to Council minutes, had open sewers,” says Galway County Council archivist Patria McWalter.
Patria believes we “need to take pride in our history, and we should take the same pride in our historical records as we do in our built heritage”. When you see the wealth of material in her care, this belief makes sense.
She is in charge of caring for the rich collection of administrative records owned by Galway County Council and says “these records are as much part of our history as the Rock of Cashel is. They document our lives and our ancestors’ lives. And nobody can plan for the future unless you learn from the past, what worked and what didn’t”.
Archivists and librarians are often unfairly regarded as being dry, academic types, but that’s certainly not true of Patria. Her enthusiasm is infectious as she turns the pages of several minute books from Galway’s Rural District Councils, all of them at least 100 years old.
Part of her role involved cataloguing all the records of the Councils – Ballinasloe, Clifden, Galway, Gort, Loughrea, Mountbellew, Portumna and Tuam. These records mostly consisted of minutes of various meetings.
When she was cataloguing them she realised their worth to local historians and researchers, so she decided to compile a guide to their content. The result is For the Record: The Archives of Galway’s Rural District Councils, which will be a valuable asset to anybody with an interest in history.
Many representatives on these Councils were local personalities and several were arrested during the political upheaval of the era, she explains.
And, ushering in a new era in history, women were allowed to sit on these Rural District Councils – at the time they were not allowed to sit on County Councils.
All of this information is included in Patria’s introductory essay to the attractively produced A4 size guide, which gives a glimpse into how these Rural Councils operated and the way political thinking changed in Ireland during a short 26-year period. In the early 1900s, these Councils supported Home Rule, but by 1920, they were calling for full independence and refusing to recognise the British administration.
“I love the tone,” says Patria of the minutes from meetings. “The language was very emotive.”
That was certainly true of the Gort Rural District Council. At a meeting in 1907, following riots in Dublin at the premiere of JM Synge’s play, The Playboy of the Western World the councillors’ response was vehement. They recorded their decision to “protest most emphatically against the libellous comedy, The Playboy of the Western World, that was belched forth during the past week in the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, under the fostering care of Lady Gregory and Mr Yeats. We congratulate the good people of Dublin in howling down the gross buffoonery and immoral suggestions that are scattered throughout this scandalous performance.
For more from the archives see this week’s Tribunes here
Date Published: 23-Jan-2013
SLIGO 0-9
GALWAY 1-4
FRANK FARRAGHER IN ENNISCRONE
GALWAY’S first serious examination of the 2013 season rather disturbingly ended with a rating well below the 40% pass mark at the idyllic, if rather Siberian, seaside setting of Enniscrone on Sunday last.
The defeat cost Galway a place in the FBD League Final against Leitrim and also put a fair dent on their confidence shield for the bigger tests that lie ahead in February.
There was no fluke element in this success by an understrength Sligo side and by the time Leitrim referee, Frank Flynn, sounded the final whistle, there wasn’t a perished soul in the crowd of about 500 who could question the justice of the outcome.
It is only pre-season and last Sunday’s blast of dry polar winds did remind everyone that this is far from summer football, but make no mistake about it, the match did lay down some very worrying markers for Galway following a couple of victories over below par third level college teams.
Galway did start the game quite positively, leading by four points at the end of a first quarter when they missed as much more, but when Sligo stepped up the tempo of the game in the 10 minutes before half-time, the maroon resistance crumbled with frightening rapidity.
Some of the statistics of the match make for grim perusal. Over the course of the hour, Galway only scored two points from play and they went through a 52 minute period of the match, without raising a white flag – admittedly a late rally did bring them close to a draw but that would have been very rough justice on Sligo.
Sligo were backable at 9/4 coming into this match, the odds being stretched with the ‘missing list’ on Kevin Walsh’s team sheet – Adrian Marren, Stephen Coen, Tony Taylor, Ross Donovan, David Kelly, David Maye, Johnny Davey and Eamon O’Hara, were all marked absent for a variety of reasons.
Walsh has his Sligo side well schooled in the high intensity, close quarters type of football, and the harder Galway tried to go through the short game channels, the more the home side bottled them up.
Galway badly needed to find some variety in their attacking strategy and maybe there is a lot to be said for the traditional Meath style of giving long, quick ball to a full forward line with a big target man on the edge of the square – given Paul Conroy’s prowess close to goal last season, maybe it is time to ‘settle’ on a few basics.
Defensively, Galway were reasonably solid with Gary Sice at centre back probably their best player – he was one of the few men in maroon to deliver decent long ball deep into the attacking zone – while Finian Hanley, Conor Costello and Gary O’Donnell also kept things tight.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Date Published: 23-Jan-2013
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