Small bin tax victory in Dun Laoghaire
dublin |
bin tax / household tax / water tax |
news report 
Thursday December 11, 2003 12:34
by Conor - WSM
Over the past 5 weeks I have got myself a new job. Every Wednesday morning I arise at 7 am and head out to join the brother, along with comrades from the SWP Dun Laoghaire branch (who, in fairness, have gotten up even earlier!) and some local non-payers. Our mission to make sure that every bin on the Granville Road, Doonsalla, Watsons road is lifted whether they have paid some, all or no bin tax. Read on at http://struggle.ws/wsm/news/2003/binsDLDEC.html.html
Comments (5 of 5)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4 5I've been out of the country for a while and have lost track of whats happening on the bin tax.
I have been reading Irish papers though and it seems to have dissapeared from the mainstream media.
Would anyone care to briefly sum up what has happened over the last month or two or point me to an appropriate summary on the web.
Is the situation basically that the bin protest has more or less lost its struggle for the time being?
Are bin trucks not being blocked anymore?
Are the vast majority basically paying their bin charges now?
Those who don't - are their bins not being collected? Where the hell do they put their rubbish!!!
It differes between the 4 areas of the city. In Fingal where tagging was used non-collection appears to have been universally implemented BUT in at least some areas Dun Laoghaire style stuff may be going on. News doesn't really filter through all that well.
Otherwise things are quiet because they reached a sort of stalemate. The councils introduced non-collection in the more affluent areas where they thought (often correctly) that the campaign was weak. Solidarity blockades all over the city in which some were jailed did not reverse this but they do seem to have prevented the council implementing non collection in areas where they think the campaign is strong.
Non-payment in the city area has dropped somewhat, FOI figures seem to show a 25% drop in those who have paid NOTHING (the only group being targetted for non-collection so far). It might be guessed that these are mostly from the areas where non-collection has been implemented. The specific figures are in the newswire in the minutes of last Saturdays conference.
So the current situation is one of stalemate in 3 of the 4 areas in relation to non-collection. Dublin South plans to copy the Fingal tagging system early next year. I suspect the big battle will be in the north west city council areas where there is very high non-payment and well organised campaigns committed to blockades (and having got in a lot of practise).
Tomorrow in the courts there will be a case (the first I think) against somebody who has not paid for the service to date.
We should get an idea of what way the courts and corpo intend to play this side of the bin tax campaign.
There's also a demo planned for the City Council estimates meeting on Monday - 6 pm City Hall in Dame Street - the charge is due to rise 25% in the city I believe
Conor
Many thanks for the above Conor.
Have the blockades and the consequent jailings more or less stopped?
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