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Anti Household Tax campaigners have this week had 2 major victories against government and County Council attempts to bully people into registering for the hated tax. In Clare, following a week long campaign which culminated in a protest march to the Council offices on Friday (21st), the Council were forced to publicly back down from threats to withhold or delay third-level grants from students whose families are refusing to pay the household tax.
About 25 members of the Dun Laoghaire area Campaign Against Household and Water Taxes (CAHWT), joined by some friends from the Bray campaign, held a lively protest in the rain outside Dun Laoghaire/Rathdown County Council's monthly meeting on Monday night (10th September).
Upon receiving word that Joan Burton, Dublin West TD and minister for Social Protection, would be present for a meeting relating to a resource centre in Newbridge, the Kildare town and Newbridge town branches of the Campaign Against Household and Water Taxes organised a protest to show that opposition to the unjust tax continues in the town and county.
On Friday 7th Sept councillors at the Kildare county council offices choose to enter through a side door rather than pass a group of protesters at the main entrance to the building. The councillors were meeting to discuss how to implement the budget cuts imposed on the council by the government as part of its efforts to pay the State's odious debts. Chants of "Axe the household tax" and "Tax the rich, not the poor" resounded in the courtyard of Kildare's administrative centre.
About 700 people from all over Ireland took part in a evening march to the Dail last night to highlight the ongoing resistance to the attempt to impose the Household tax. Although smaller than recent CAHWT protests because the march was at 5 o'clock on a working day in July it was still of significant size. The timing was because this was the last day the Dail sits. Below is a slideshow of photos our photographer took on the demonstration, many more photos will be found in our Facebook album of the march which you are encouraged to share. There is a video of the march in the body of the article, click through to view it.
Almost a month has passed since the national conference of the Campaign Against Household and Water Taxes (CAHWT). While on the surface things look pretty quiet, this is a critical juncture for the campaign. The momentum that has been lost by the attachment of the CAHWT to the unsuccessful No referendum campaign will only be rebuilt when the government make their next move, but those active in the campaign need to use the coming weeks to prepare for that eventuality.
The Campaign Against Household and Water Charges (CAHWT) has been hugely successful so far in several ways: in encouraging mass non-payment; in making the taxes a big political issue, even in the mainstream media; in getting tens of thousands of people involved in protests and public meetings.
Dan Hayden and Colin Scott (‘Why People Avoided Paying Household Charge’ 16th April) should get out of their academic ivory tower and talk to some real people if they want to answer the question as to why almost a million households have decided to put themselves in conflict with the government by refusing to register for and pay the household tax. Instead of presenting any real analysis of what is by any stretch of the imagination a massive rejection of government policy they start off by insulting those who decided not to register and go on to present a hotch-potch of half-baked theories which seem designed to do anything other than admit the truth – people made a conscious political decision not to pay.
Thousands of people marched from Eyre Square in Galway to the Labour Party conference at NUIG on Saturday. People had travelled from all over the country to show their opposition to the household tax and other attacks on people’s living standards. The story that made the evening news however, was one of the several hundred strong breakaway protest that reached the doors of the conference centre.
Two recent surveys have shed a little light on the levels of poverty and financial distress being experienced in Ireland. A survey by the "What's left" found 47% of households (over 1.5million people) with €100 or less in hand monthly after essential bills have paid. The other survey by Social Justice Ireland calculated over 700,000 people now live impoverished lives in the state. The increasing cost of essentials, declining wages and rising unemployment are all contributing to this.