Thursday news Ireland update by Donie

The household Charge will not be abolished: 

So say’s Eamon Gilmore

         

Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore has said the Household Charge has to be paid and will not be abolished by the Government.

Saturday is the deadline for the Household Charge payment and still only 520,000 thousand have signed up or paid.

Mr Gilmore said he understood that no-one liked paying extra taxes, but the charge is an interim measure that had to be introduced before a property tax can be fully implemented.

Around 30% of people had paid the Household Charge by this evening.

The Department of the Environment has asked local authorities to open as many offices as possible on Saturday, which is the deadline for payment.

A spokesperson said this meant that all principal offices in each county would be open at the very least.

Those who do not pay before next Sunday will face penalties and fines.

Speaking in China, Taoiseach Enda Kenny said that people have plenty of time left to pay the charge and that it is the law of the land.

However, Socialist TD Joe Higgins said the Government is facing a mass revolt over the charge and will not be able to impose it.

He said people understood that the charge was simply a precursor to a total new tier of taxation that would quickly go to €1,000 per household and beyond, which they cannot bear.

Elsewhere, the Mandate trade union has announced its support for the Sinn Féin Household Charge Repeal Bill, which was launched today.

The union said the charge disproportionately affects those on lower incomes, but added that it would support the Government in introducing a fair and progressive property tax.

Fianna Fáil is advising people to pay the charge but says the deadline should be pushed back.

Minister for the Environment Phil Hogan has repeated that there will be no extension to the 31 March deadline.

A meeting of the Fine Gael parliamentary party this evening was dominated by discussion of the charge

Minister Hogan made a presentation and fielded questions from over 20 TDs and Senators.

Sources said the tone of the meeting was broadly supportive of the minister.

However, there was some criticism of Labour ministers, including Joan Burton and Brendan Howlin, who had voiced misgivings about his handling of the issue.

14.5 per cent of dwellings in Ireland were vacant in the Census of 2011

  

A photo of an unoccupied house in Co Leitrim on the left.

There were 289,451 vacant dwellings around Ireland at the time of Census 2011 – 14.5 per cent of all housing stock in the state.

Of these, over 59,000 were holiday homes.

The majority of the remaining 230,056 dwellings were vacant houses (73.2 per cent), with unoccupied flats or apartments accounting for over a quarter of empty dwellings in April 2011.

Most of the vacant houses were recorded in rural areas (as shown in the map below), particularly in the west and north-west.

In Waterford city, 15 per cent of dwellings were vacant, according to Census 2011. Meanwhile in Dublin city, one in ten dwellings was vacant, the majority of which were apartments or flats.

Connacht had the highest percentage of vacant dwellings at 21.3 per cent, of which 12,232 were holiday homes and 43,005 were vacant houses, flats or apartments.

The part of Ulster covered by the census had 22,870 vacant houses, flats and apartments, while Munster had 69,078 and Leinster had 95,103.

Co Leitrim had the highest percentage of vacant dwellings, at 30.5 per cent, while Co Donegal had 28.6 per cent.  The lowest percentage of vacancies was recorded in South Dublin (5.4 per cent).

Overall, the number of vacant dwellings increased, but the vacancy level fell 0.5 per cent on Census 2006.

This map shows all of the vacant properties, including holiday homes, recorded in Census 2011:

Holiday homes: More than one in five vacant properties in Ireland in April 2011 were holiday homes, according to census data collected last year, or 3 per cent of all properties in Ireland.

These unoccupied holiday homes accounted for 59,395 dwellings (up from the 49,789 recorded in 2006), and they were mostly concentrated in counties along the southern and western coastlines such as Clare, Wexford, Kerry and Donegal.

Wexford registered the highest percentage of vacant properties that were holiday homes (48 per cent).

Protest’s after a Courtney Brothers elephant (named Baby) escapes in Cork city

        

No boss I do not want to have my bath today? The elephant called baby protest’s and ran off through the streets. 

Animal rights activists plan to picket a circus responsible for allowing an elephant to run free outside a busy Cork shopping centre. “Baby”, a 40-year-old Indian elephant, became agitated when handlers tried to hose it down, its owners said.

The female elephant paced through a retail car park in Blackpool before charging through a busy junction towards a shopping centre. Its minders chased and brought it to a halt minutes later. It was returned to the Courtney Brothers circus at the Sunbeam site in Blackpool.

Animal rights activists plan to picket the circus responsible for the elephant that made a dash for freedom across a Cork carpark.

The elephant escaped from the Courtney Brothers circus at the Sunbeam site in Blackpool yesterday.

The agitated elephant paced through a retail carpark in Blackpool before charging a busy junction towards a shopping centre with its minders chasing behind.

It was brought under control and returned to the circus by handlers shortly after the incident.

Animal Rights Action Network (Aran) said the incident might have lead to a trampling that could have caused serious injury or death. The group is campaigning for a ban on animal circus acts.

“This should be seen as a clear warning that’s it’s only a matter of time before someone is killed or injured. These are animals that belong in the wild but are kept in cramped vans and wagons for transportation and then made to perform ridiculous acts,” Aran spokesman John Carmody said.

Aran members picketed the Courtney Brothers circus in Bandon last week. They claim despite best intentions, animals cannot be housed in a humane way as part of the circus.

“These are wild animals by nature. But they are chained and tethered. In Bandon, their only freedom was a small enclosure covered with tarpaulin. They are made to perform ridiculous, degrading acts,” Mr Carmody said.

The Courtney Brothers walk the herd of five elephants through each town they perform in to announce their arrival, which Aran claim is a danger to public safety.

“We are warning gardaí and local councils that it’s only a matter of time before someone gets hurt, it’s a matter of public safety. We may not be so lucky next time,” Mr Carmody said.

The Courtney Brothers claim to be one of the oldest circus families in Ireland.

Circus representatives were not available for comment today.