Income tax hike warnings to pay for Ireland’s household tax levy shortfall
Workers will have to pay more tax next year if 600,000 homeowners persist with their refusal to pay the household charge, Environment Minister Phil Hogan has warned.
Mr Hogan also said anti-household charge protesters refusing to pay the levy would be directly responsible for cuts to their own local authority services.
The minister was heckled by protesters yesterday as he arrived at the MacGill summer school and was forced to enter the conference venue by the back door.
He said he was surprised by the placard holders who pushed through a Garda line shouting they would not pay the €100 charge.
“The people that haven’t paid will be responsible for cuts in essential services and local government if they don’t pay between now and the end of the year.
“The alternative to that is to put more taxation on work and working people, including some people who have already paid the charge and do not want to pay any more tax,” he told reporters afterwards inside the hotel.
Revenue tax commissioners have been given the job of collecting the property tax, which will take over from the household charge next year. Phil Hogan said the amount to be charged to households remained unknown but that the finance minister would be a “key” decider on what the property tax would be.
As of last weekend, there were 992,924 properties registered for the household charge. More than 600,000 more households have yet to pay up and this has left the Government with at least a €60m shortfall in the levy’s collection.
Local authorities last week were informed that millions of euro were being cut from their budgets, partially because of the low amounts of payments of the household charge in some areas.
Some €4.5m was cut from Dublin City, and €1.7m from Cork City.
Mr Hogan added: “It’s appropriate that people have a peaceful protest but at the end of the day, local government services have to be paid for.
“It’s the law of the land and I’d ask people that are protesting and haven’t paid to pay, otherwise services will be put under threat in local authorities like Donegal.”
Simon Coveney, the agriculture minister, said that services in local authorities would be cut if homeowners did not pay the charge.
Commenting while also attending the conference, he explained: “If people don’t pay their household tax, that creates a hole in the budget of local authorities.”
Mr Hogan also revealed details yesterday of his plans to overhaul local government. He said that he would likely cut the numbers of councillors as well as the number of councils.
He also said that the expenses regime for councillors would be made more transparent.
But the launch of his Putting People First plan has been postponed until the autumn.
“It’s extremely likely that I will be cutting the number of councillors and the number of authorities.
“I’m certainly going to strengthen the role of the local authority audit committees.”
Fianna Fáil’s Niall Collins told the audience that expenses and payments handed to councillors for attending conferences should be taken away. Any foreign travel should be entirely self-financed by elected members, he argued.
Meanwhile:
RICHARD BRUTON DEFENDS PHIL HOGAN’S COMMENTS ON THE HOUSEHOLD CHARGE
Jobs Minister Richard Bruton has today defended a Cabinet colleague who said that that income tax hikes may have to be considered if people refuse to pay the Household Charge.
At the Magill Summer School yesterday, the Environment Minister Phil Hogan said the alternative to the charge was to put more taxes on work and working people.
Minister Bruton said that the commitment in the Programme for Government not to increase income tax is an “important factor”.
“I think what Phil Hogan was expressing was that if people refuse to pay a tax that is supporting local services in their area, they will see a natural consequence,” he said.
“You have to treat the people who pay their taxes and have a right to see the delivery of service – Government has to champion those people.
Lives lost to suicide in Northern Ireland since the troubles ‘doubled in 12 years’
Suicide rates in Northern Ireland have doubled since the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, shock new research has found.
A study by Queen’s University has found that with the peace process, the number of suicides here has conversely risen from 8.6 per 100,000 of the population in 1998 to 16 for every 100,000 people in 2010.
The author of the report, Professor Mike Tomlinson, said as paramilitary violence has become less acceptable, cases of self-harm, suicide, substance abuse and mental ill-health have become more common as people struggle to cope with the legacy of the Troubles.
“We seem to have adjusted to peace by means of mass medication with anti-depressants, alcohol and non-prescription drugs,” he said.
“The transition to peace means that cultures of externalised aggression are no longer socially approved or politically acceptable. Violence and aggression have become more internalised instead.”
The two-year study of suicide rates in Northern Ireland over the last 40 years also uncovered a startling figure — the highest suicide rate is in men between 35 and 44 years old — dispelling the notion that young men in their teens and early 20s are most at risk of dying by suicide.
Prof Tomlinson (below) said his research has highlighted the need for Government to revise its suicide strategy to target people who grew up during the worst years of violence between 1969 and 1978.
“It may well be missing the target by over-emphasising interventions with younger age groups and failing to focus on those who experienced the worst of the violence,” he said.
“We have created a bit of a myth about suicide. Evidence does show the number of younger people dying by suicide is increasing, but so too are women and older groups.
“I think we have underestimated the challenge of tackling suicide.
“We have to look hard at our suicide prevention strategy. We set ourselves a target in 2006 to achieve a 10% reduction in suicides over the next couple of years and then a further 5% reduction by 2011.
“We have missed that target massively. The number of suicides has continued to go up.
“Had we achieved the target there would be 366 people alive today who have died by suicide since 2006.
“Northern Ireland’s suicide prevention strategy has so far made little impact on the upward trend.”
Prof Tomlinson said more work must be done to tackle suicide in general and called for more funding for mental health services in Northern Ireland.
His comments come just a day after the Belfast Telegraph revealed a suicidal woman waited eight hours in A&E before being turned away because there were no hospital beds available.
“We are really very bad at emergency response,” he continued.
“If you compare how we respond to a physical accident, such as a car accident, I believe we should apply the same resources to situations where someone is in a state where they may be thinking of or actually harming themselves. However, at the moment we just don’t have the infrastructure to pick that up.
“Mental health services are very much the Cinderella of the health service. We need to do so much more in terms of mental health services.”
A spokeswoman from the Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety (DHSSPS) said a refreshed Protect Life strategy is due to run until 2014, but work to develop suicide prevention policy is ongoing. She said the research carried out by Prof Tomlinson will be considered as part of this work.
Providence exploration hits high as potential oil yield are revised
Shares in the exploration company Providence Resources reached their highest levels in three years yesterday after the company upped its estimates of the amount of oil present at its Barryroe site off the coast of Cork.
Providence hit a high of €8.95 before closing at €8.41 in Dublin yesterday, less than 1 per cent stronger. The shares have jumped by more than 250 per cent this year.
In an update to the market yesterday, the company said it expected to find between one and 1.6 billion barrels of oil – up to four times initial estimates. The update follows a four-month assessment of two of the hydrocarbon-bearing zones at the 300sq km site.
In addition, the analysis identified further resource potential at other reservoir intervals at the site. The company has begun work on mapping these zones.
Providence chief executive Tony O’Reilly jnr described the find as “hugely significant by North Sea standards”, though he said the issue was how much oil would actually be recovered.
While an earlier report assumed a 16 per cent recovery rate, more recent North Sea discoveries have had a recovery rate of 38 per cent. Mr O’Reilly said yesterday the outcome was likely to be “somewhere in between”: “We will define the recovery rates over the next few months, which will be predicated on how we develop this field. The 16 per cent estimate was based on older data, and old vertical wells.”
Providence, which has an 80 per cent interest in the venture, will actively go out into the market to seek partners for the next stage of the project by the end of the year. The company has already received informal approaches from potential partners.
Analysts predict Providence will most likely halve its stake to 40 per cent in exchange for a carry-through development, with production unlikely to start before 2015. According to Mr O’Reilly, the existing energy infrastructure in Cork, including pipelines, refineries such as Whitegate, as well as Ireland’s benign climate and good tax rate, makes the Barryroe site an attractive investment location for international oil companies.
Barryroe’s gas resource – which would be less valuable than any oil recovered – was not included in the latest assessment.
Barryroe is one of six sites being developed by Providence around Ireland as part of a two-year drilling plan. The company expects to begin exploratory drilling in its Dalkey Island licence area in the Irish Sea by early 2013.
It has applied for a foreshore permit for the controversial development 10km from Dalkey Island off the coast of south Dublin.
One in 20 (5%) serious skin cancers due to use of sunbeds, A report suggests
About one in 20 cases of the most dangerous form of skin cancer can be attributed to sunbed use, research published today suggests.
Researchers from the International Prevention Research Institute in France and the European Institute of Oncology in Italy analysed the results of 27 studies on skin cancer and sunbed use carried out in Europe between 1981 and 2012. The number of skin cancer cases included in the analysis was 11,428.
The study, published online by the British Medical Journal, enabled doctors to calculate that out of 63,942 new cases of malignant melanoma (the type of skin cancer most likely to spread) diagnosed each year in Europe, an estimated 3,438 (5.4 per cent) are related to sunbed use.
The authors estimate that from the 63,942 new cases of melanoma diagnosed every year in 18 western European countries, 794 deaths (498 women and 296 men) would be caused by sunbed use.
Some 721 cases of melanoma are diagnosed in Ireland each year.
Modern indoor tanning equipment mainly emits in the ultraviolet A range; a fraction of the spectrum is in the ultraviolet B range. Powerful ultraviolet tanning units may be 10-15 times stronger than the midday sunlight on the Mediterranean Sea, and repeated exposure to large amounts of ultraviolet A delivered to the skin in relatively short periods (typically 10-20 minutes) poses a risk to humans.
The International Agency for Research on Cancer has classified the whole ultraviolet spectrum and indoor tanning devices as carcinogenic.
A study from 2005 found a 75 per cent increased risk of melanoma if sunbed sessions were started during adolescence or early adulthood. However no studies since then have estimated the impact of melanomas due to sunbeds in western Europe. This latest research estimates the risk of skin cancer doubles if sunbed use starts before the age of 35.
The authors believe that earlier studies tended to underestimate the risks of indoor tanning because the use of these devices is relatively new. Furthermore, from 2005 to 2011, most risks have increased. Future studies could therefore demonstrate an even higher risk, they say.
A new law banning under-18s from using sunbeds in the North came into force in May. Legislation is also due to be enacted in the Republic to ban under-18s from using sunbeds.
Enda Kenny says he wants a children’s out-of-hours social service’s for Ireland
Taoiseach Enda Kenny has said he would like to see an out-of-hours social work service introduced for children at risk “as soon as possible”.
He was speaking after the launch of new national standards for the ”Protection and Welfare of Children” prepared by the Health Information and Quality Authority.
However, Ineke Durville of the Irish Association of Social Workers has warned that a 24-hour crisis intervention service is a long way off.
New child protection standards stipulate that the HSE must give timely access to services to children who are not getting adequate care and protection.
HIQA has the power to monitor their application and can demand that child-focused care plans are put in place.
They also underline the need to identify and respond to institutional and organisational abuse.
Up until now, HIQA has monitored standards of care in settings such as foster care and residential care.
The standards describe what the HSE Children and Family Services should be doing to protect and promote the welfare of children who are not receiving adequate care and protection.
They are designed to follow a child’s journey within the child protection system to ensure that his/her safety and welfare is being protected.
They mandate the provision of accessible information to the families concerned, timely access to services, screening of referrals, assessment to ensure that appropriate services are made available, and the taking of timely action to protect children at risk of harm.
The standards stipulate that the needs of children subjected to organisational and/or institutional abuse and children who are deemed to be especially vulnerable must be identified and responded to.
They also demand that child-focused care plans are in place, reviewed and monitored.
Anti-household tax campaign group hits out at Government guilt-trip
The Campaign Against Household and Water Taxes group has blasted the Government and local authorities in Galway for what it describes as attempt to “guilt” people into paying the controversial household charge.
The comment by the national campaign group comes in the wake of news earlier this week that the Department of the Environment has notified both the Galway City Council and the Galway County Council that funding cuts of more than €3 million could be implemented if the €100 household charge is not paid by those who continue to refuse to pay it.
The group has also strongly hit out at suggestions made by a city councillor, and reported in the local media, that those who refuse to pay the household charge are effectively holding the city to ransom with threats that services will be severely affected as a result of non-payment.
It is understood that household charge compliance will be taken into account when Local Government Fund payments are allocated to the local authorities, and that approximately 27,000 householders in Galway county and approximately 8,000 households in the city have yet to pay the charge. Reminder letters have been sent out urging householders who have not already done so to pay up.
Conor Burke of the Campaign Against Household and Water Taxes said the group “completely refutes the claims that non-payers are to blame for the shortfall in the local government budget. The reality is that the Labour and Fine Gael Government cut €170 million from the local government fund at the last Budget and then tried to force this unjust tax on ordinary home owners in order to make up the shortfall that they themselves had created.
Home owners are already being hammered by things like the universal social charge, the pension levy, tax increases, cuts to welfare and other allowances, rising fuel and insurance costs to name but a few. They rightly see these charges as a bridge too far and are now making a stand. Ever since the onset of the economic crisis these sort of devastating budget cuts have been heaped onto the shoulders of workers, homeowners, and families all in the name of saving bankers, bond holders, and speculators from the consequences of their own blunders… for anyone to turn around now and try to place the blame on beleaguered home owners for taking a stand just goes to show how out of touch with reality they are.
“Nationally over 52 per cent of home owners are still refusing to pay these unfair unjust charges, it is no wonder the political establishment are nervous, they know that they can’t enforce these charges if large amounts of people refuse to pay, and now they are getting desperate with threatening letters and wild claims aimed at trying to guilt people into paying. If anyone is a threat to local services than surely it is these same bankers, bond holders, and speculators and a Government that seems to care more about enriching them at the expense of its own people.”
Mr Burke continued: “The campaign is currently distributing thousands of leaflets across the city and county which address the issue of the Government’s threatening letters and answer any questions or concerns that home owners may have. A number of public meetings will also take place in the coming weeks. Our message to those who are maintaining the boycott is to keep it up, together we will defeat these unfair and unjust charges.”
No comments:
Post a Comment