brian@socialistparty.net

“You only pay for what you throw away”

Swords based Socialist Party Councillor Clare Daly Chairperson of the Fingal Anti-Bin Tax Campaign has slammed the proposed introduction of a new flat charge for environmental services, linked to the extension of the green and brown bin service.

* FINGAL ANTI-BIN TAX CAMPAIGN WILL VIGOROUSLY OPPOSE THIS DOUBLE TAX

Councillor Daly said, “After six years of propaganda from Fingal County Council to establish the tag system for the collection of the grey bin, they have now dropped the sham environmental cover and moved to charging directly for recycling facilities also.

All of the statements from Council management and the pro-bin tax councillors when the charge was originally brought in, that it wouldn’t rise, that it had nothing to do with generating extra taxation but was about encouraging people to recycle, have now been exposed for what they were – TOTAL AND UTTER BLATANT FALSEHOODS.”

She continued, “The Fingal Anti-Bin Tax Campaign has been absolutely vindicated in the stand that we took opposing that charge. Not only has the charge increased massively every year, but now the Council’s own catch-phrase has been shown up as a con. Residents will remember the Council’s slogan “You only pay for what you throw away”, and all the nonsense that if people recycled the charge would be negligible. The new proposals would mean an average household based on leaving out the grey bin fortnightly, as having paying a bin tax of €300 per annum. This is an absolute disgrace.”

Councillor Daly said, “The bin tax has always been about generating extra revenue for the Council against the backdrop of falling percentages of government support. Tens of thousands of new taxpayers have moved into Fingal County Council over the past 5-10 years, yet the amount of funding from central government equates to only 13%.

The introduction of a bin tax has made waste big business the private operators are earning millions from the present situation while PAYE taxpayers and pensioners are levied on the double. Meanwhile, while recycling has increased, the actual amount of waste per person has also increased during the lifetime of the charge.”

She concluded, “This debacle will only be halted through the elimination of a direct charge and the reinstatement of waste collection as a public service. We will vigorously oppose the introduction of this new tax by every means possible, starting at the Council Estimates meeting next Tuesday.

a competitor’s site says ‘the revolution will be podcast’. Well I don’t want my revolution to be time-shifted and under 45 minutes in length. 51 years ago news (film) from Ireland had to be sent to the UK to be processed before being broadcast again back in Ireland (on TV).  Nowadays every phone user is a walking cameraman within ear shot of a story. Record ~ Stop ~ Upload. but are we using this power to greatest effect? the Marcos Government was the first to be toppled with aid of txt msg, Tienanmen square china students used the FAX to get news out. we are overdue a new media political faux pas of a revolutionary scale. Students Minitel Paris ’68. - discuss…….

[photo lifted from here without permission but with gratitude in advance]

Built in Dublin ahead of time ahead of budget and ahead of U2 Tower

Stephen Collins in today’s Irish times (page 13) writes about an anomaly where the number of TDs per constituency is set by the population size via census not by the citizenship of the constituency.

1. this is only an anomaly if you want to disenfranchise non Irish citizens and Irish babies, children and youth up to the age of 18

2. Collins holds up an anomaly, there is none, the constitution says population and the boundary commission uses population, No anomaly there!

3. Should a non Irish citizen be less represented than an Irish Citizen? No.

4. Are there more Irish Citizens that stay at home and don’t vote than the “anomaly” Collins thinks he has uncovered? yes.

5. All the population are entitled to representation.

6. So the two Constituencies that are least represented are Dublin West & Dublin North which should return two Socialist Party deputies at the next election. Memories of Gerrymandering.

7. Collins argues that areas that have had decreasing populations (i call it empty nest syndrome) have higher proportion of Irish citizens than DW & DN, this is an “anomaly”?

8. The votes are secret ballot. All TDs / Councillors in my area represent me. But they wont should I disagree with their policies and planning ideas etc. So in general the best way I have of getting represented, and particularly for marginalised population is to have a public representative that is voted in by me/them, ideal with STV PR and not ideal in a first past the post system. Much more possible if the number of TDs is proportionate to the population not the voters (over 18) or Irish citizens.

Perhaps the real anomaly is that we take your Income Tax, Value Added Tax on your mars bar (and Irish Times), road tax TV licence, waste charges tax, capital gains, stamp duty, but if your not an Irish citizen living here you can not vote, so we will give your area less TDs! Perhaps Collins should look into the vote for the non Irish Citizen, rather than think that the constitution has an anomaly and that areas really are not under represented.

No taxation without representation becomes ”all tax no representation“ anomaly

so Mrs T did have some advice for true (blue) Labour PM!

this shot of the front of the daily express (ireland:yuk) is from mid election campaign in ireland, feel good factor headline. Any one got last thursdays evening herald snapped?

Niall Gormley (Northside People) wrote a good piece on the demise of the Vincent Browne Show on RTE Radio 1.

apologies I can’t link to the text its only in print in this weeks Northside People

He dismisses the number crunching that I think is JNLR based. I disagree here, flawed or not the numbers may be inaccurate but at least they are consistently inaccurate allowing us to compare station against station and quarter on quarter. But Niall fixes in on the fact the 20,000 listeners as a bottom base is still way too many to drop a show (and he has a point) I heard commercials on the VB 2nite show, im sure I did, wogan interiors! anyone else hear commercial advertising during that late night show?

He suggests that RTE’s resource excuse is thin, suggesting RTE can take this show online or split frequency MW/LW and have muzak on FM - I like the idea, couldn’t radio schedulers who work in the business come to this conclusion or do RTE really not want VB anymore.

Gormley fails to reach the conclusion I reach. The bourgeoisisation of RTE Donnybrook Dublin 4.

Listen to radio1 and you will feel that pseudo D4 suits run it, own it, programme it and listen to it. Yes the rest of the Irish population and diaspora listen (agreed, see yestersdays happy clappy JNLR numbers for Radio1) but the day and night is filled with market loving SSIA promoting rugger boys! and Brown was the last man standing in the sticky corner the FF’ers used to red scare about. FF’ers hated RTE so much in 1988 things happened like the CAP, the century radio setup, the forcing of RTE to carry independent signals on their network and the proposed privatisation of 2FM, we even had a module dedicated to the century radio antics of rambo in the tribunals, tribunals - browne getting the link?

Browne v Bertie (and Mara) during May ‘07 election, the summer stand in choices by RTE radio1 and the gifting of half price legal costs to Bev Flynn TD (indie FF) are not isolated actions, its RTE doing what modern RTE does well. They are the Irish marketing department for James Murdochs Sky TV.

The sale of their OB unit, the audience council, their lack of vision in DAB DTT and HD, and their abject failure to offer DVB direct to home Free To Air.

The problem is not the losing of tonight with VB, we have lost an entire national broadcaster to the whims and wishes of an elite few who are driving RTE to a place far away from where Irish people are, case in point the afternoon show (rte1 tv), packed with fashion and hand bags worth €1000’s not to giggle at but to aspire to and the same goes for its food fascism and body image and money advice. By, for and devoted to an elite that we Irish are not.

If this was the other way round the press would call it a coup, a revolution a take over. Keep paying the licence fee, i think their salaries are going to need it.

Now: [press release from minister of state Tony Killeen TD]

Then: his views on the dangers to Shannon recorded some time before the ‘07 Election for the RTE Radio show the constituency

fast forward to 13:09 MP3

“there are people who will forever feel I suppose that Shannon is under threat and some of them will be doing that for political reasons” Tony Killeen TD

[this MP3 is not flash playable as it is chip'ed]

 test: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

The latest Ryanair advert annoys the unionist camp. [link 1] [link2] [link3]. yesterday over our radios we heard Aer Lingus shareholder Ryanair [RYAAY] boss Michael O’Leary tell that his company would back a Govt. call that would see Aer Lingus keep the LHR /SNN Shannon link.

You see if the Irish government didn’t sell Are Lingus to the sharks, Denis O’Brien & Michael O’Leary would not have got shares in it. (by the way check how much the irish tax payer got in the sale, the monies went back into privatised aer lingus) so now he has shares he can call up the govt. (another minority share holder) and advise them on Shannon takeover. Aer Lingus would not be in the shannon belfast move if they didn’t sell it. Another fine mess. read ireland for sale march 2006 by bhg. Even if you agreed with privatisation, you would have to admit the Fianna Fail party are pretty woeful at it.

There are some things money can’t buy -
for everything else there’s Fianna Fail