Newstalk on tolls this morning "I firmly believe the polluters should pay"

CommuterIE

Newstalk on tolls this morning "I firmly believe the polluters should pay". I believe this was Ivan Yates who said this though I am open to correction on that?

Is this guy a complete ****in ejit??? It has nothing to do with pollution!!! It's about taxes, quite frankly in this climate to make such a statement is both galling and disgusting... people like him will have us taxpayers paying a lot more! Be it on tolls, water charges (it has nothing to do with ****ing water, it's more revenue for government!!) How have gombeens come to control the airwaves!!!

Dont be at yourself

I currently pass through the M50 toll twice a day. If the toll is increased, I'll be clogging up town with all the other commuters who can't afford to pay it. How's that for business?

View

NekkidBibleMan wrote: »

I currently pass through the M50 toll twice a day. If the toll is increased, I'll be clogging up town with all the other commuters who can't afford to pay it. How's that for business?

That's okay. You'll get hit by the proposed new urban congestion charge instead.

oppenheimer1

CommuterIE wrote: »

Newstalk on tolls this morning "I firmly believe the polluters should pay". I believe this was Ivan Yates who said this though I am open to correction on that?

Is this guy a complete ****in ejit??? It has nothing to do with pollution!!! It's about taxes, quite frankly in this climate to make such a statement is both galling and disgusting... people like him will have us taxpayers paying a lot more! Be it on tolls, water charges (it has nothing to do with ****ing water, it's more revenue for government!!) How have gombeens come to control the airwaves!!!

Isn't that the point? We don't pay enough tax to cover the levels of service we demand from the government... So we must either pay more or expect less service. And as the people of Roscommon have demonstrated, some vocal people are not willing to take a reduction in services. So guess where that leaves us...

Manach

Is there a false choice re: level of tax and service provided. In that the upper limit to the amount of tax that the State can levy from the taxpayers will always be pushed upwards in the name of "fairness" - as per a Junior government transport minister. Unless the monies collected can be allocated at a local level by the people who know best, empowered citizens, the burden will continue to rise.

unit 1

CommuterIE wrote: »

Newstalk on tolls this morning "I firmly believe the polluters should pay". I believe this was Ivan Yates who said this though I am open to correction on that?

Is this guy a complete ****in ejit??? It has nothing to do with pollution!!! It's about taxes, quite frankly in this climate to make such a statement is both galling and disgusting... people like him will have us taxpayers paying a lot more! Be it on tolls, water charges (it has nothing to do with ****ing water, it's more revenue for government!!) How have gombeens come to control the airwaves!!!

Don't forget he also believes that those on tracker mortgages will also have to wake up and smell the coffee.
BTW is'nt this the guy who as minister of agriculture said he negotiated with the russians over some beef problem, when in fact he actually dealt with them by phone, or some such nonsense, the kind of thing he delights in castigating politicians for now he has become gamekeeper.:rolleyes:

washman3

oppenheimer1 wrote: »

Isn't that the point? We don't pay enough tax to cover the levels of service we demand from the government... So we must either pay more or expect less service. And as the people of Roscommon have demonstrated, some vocal people are not willing to take a reduction in services. So guess where that leaves us...

You working for FG/LAB bud.??
sounds like you got placed in a Quango as a reward for your election work
or else you've swallowed the entire jar of pills in one go.:mad:

Cookie_Monster

NekkidBibleMan wrote: »

I currently pass through the M50 toll twice a day. If the toll is increased, I'll be clogging up town with all the other commuters who can't afford to pay it. How's that for business?

you go right ahead and waste an extra hour a day in traffic so, is your time not worth anything to you?

token56

I dont accept the point that the people using motorways contribute more to pollution than users of any other roads. I doubt someone travelling along the M50 from lets say the airport to dundrum would be less economical and cause more pollution than someone doing the same trip through the city. To introduce a toll on certain roads and claim its for pollution is just plane deceitful. Its purely to increase revenue and that is it.

I thought the whole point of tolls on roads were to help pay for their cost, maintenance, upgrade whatever, maybe I'm mistaken. We already pay carbon tax on petrol etc and pay motor tax based on size of engine or C02 emissions. If pollution is the problem then increase these but dont bull**** around claim something is about pollution when its not. And if it is about pollution please show the evidence where the money obtained from any such charges is being invested to help reduce the problem. Simple figures like money taken for pollution charges, money spend on investment, some quantifiable improvement. If anybody has such figures please show me them. Pollution related charges are such an easy scapegoat these days.

bastados

They should start from the ground up with all these extras levies...tax the homeless first as we're all heading in that direction.

cavedave

The polluter should pay implies tax should be added to petrol not to tolls. Tolls are the same no matter how inefficient your car. So if the polluter pays is government policy that implies taxes on fuel not road tolling.

Laminations

Using 'polluter pays' to justify road tolls when you are tolling motorways makes no sense. Cars travel faster, more efficiently and hence produce less pollution on these proposed toll roads. Tolling them onto smaller more congested roads is anathema to the polluter pays principle.

The truth is we don't have enough money and they need to collect it everywhere. Income is not matching expenditure but more than that we don't have enough money because the government chose to recapitalize dishonest black hole banks and pay back bondholders who should've taken a loss.

There is no principle to these new charges other than flawed economic principles

djpbarry

CommuterIE wrote: »

Is this guy a complete ****in ejit??? It has nothing to do with pollution!!! It's about taxes, quite frankly in this climate to make such a statement is both galling and disgusting... people like him will have us taxpayers paying a lot more! Be it on tolls, water charges (it has nothing to do with ****ing water, it's more revenue for government!!

So the water infrastructure is not in tatters due to years of chronic under-investment?

washman3 wrote: »

You working for FG/LAB bud.??
sounds like you got placed in a Quango as a reward for your election work
or else you've swallowed the entire jar of pills in one go.:mad:

So the HSE is not currently running up a substantial deficit?

COYW

washman3 wrote: »

You working for FG/LAB bud.??
sounds like you got placed in a Quango as a reward for your election work
or else you've swallowed the entire jar of pills in one go.:mad:

No he is being realistic as opposed to living in some leftist wonderland. If people want top class or even better public services then they have to be willing to pay for them. It is pretty obvious that nobody is willing to accept cuts, so we don't really have much of a choice in relation to how the revenue needed to fund the improvements is generated do we?

Son Of A Vidic

cavedave wrote: »

The polluter should pay implies tax should be added to petrol not to tolls. Tolls are the same no matter how inefficient your car. So if the polluter pays is government policy that implies taxes on fuel not road tolling.

Don't say that to loud, because your're undermining their reason for the continued financial raping of us.

ei.sdraob

Yet another reason to avoid Dublin

They build roads funded by taxpayer money and then make you pay for the privilege of using them, genius!

Paparazzo

cavedave wrote: »

The polluter should pay implies tax should be added to petrol not to tolls. Tolls are the same no matter how inefficient your car. So if the polluter pays is government policy that implies taxes on fuel not road tolling.

Or the most likely scenario. Both

Yahew

ei.sdraob wrote: »

Yet another reason to avoid Dublin

They build roads funded by taxpayer money and then make you pay for the privilege of using them, genius!

Which merely means that car drivers are that bit less subsidised by the rest of us. The toll is a bit dumb though, although I agree with a congestion charge.

anymore

CommuterIE wrote: »

Newstalk on tolls this morning "I firmly believe the polluters should pay". I believe this was Ivan Yates who said this though I am open to correction on that?

Is this guy a complete ****in ejit??? It has nothing to do with pollution!!! It's about taxes, quite frankly in this climate to make such a statement is both galling and disgusting... people like him will have us taxpayers paying a lot more! Be it on tolls, water charges (it has nothing to do with ****ing water, it's more revenue for government!!) How have gombeens come to control the airwaves!!!

Close to my home, Newstalk have erected an enormous advertising banner on a rock face. It is Newstalk who are the polluters.
To your question, is this guy a complete ****, yes he is - and a bookie to boot !

Yahew

It's not really gombeenism to want polluters to pay.

Paparazzo

Yahew wrote: »

It's not really gombeenism to want polluters to pay.

It is if you want it paid by tolls.

CatFromHue

im not sure what newstalk were getting at with the its the polluters who should pay comment.

my understanding of the proposed new tolls for the m50 is that it would be like a bus ticket in that the further you go the more you pay eg cherrywood to the airport 2 euro, cherrywood to tallaght 1 euro etc.

if you think about it though the current system is not very efficient e.g i used the m50 twice today, once last friday, once last sunday, and twice last thursday. i didnt have to pay for any of these journeys. now if all these journeys had been tolled to some degree the govt could potentially make alot of money without increasing the max value currently tolled.

deadduck

CommuterIE wrote: »

Newstalk on tolls this morning "I firmly believe the polluters should pay". I believe this was Ivan Yates who said this though I am open to correction on that?

In Yates' defence, I don't think it was him who said that, but actually the guy who's replaced him temporarily, something Coleman?

coolbeans

I firmly believe in the polluter pays principle, and I would definitely consider myself an environmentalist. However, it is quite disingenuous to introduce tolls to curb pollution when:
A there is no viable alternative for many
B the real reason these charges are being introduced is the fact that the country is broke. It's got **** all to do with pollution.
I'd find it much easier to accept these charges if they just admitted the latter point and tried to address the former in an imaginative and cost effective manner. A decent bus service for example would cost peanuts relatively. When I was in Kenya I was astounded by their bus system which moves people quickly and efficiently almost anywhere, and I mean anywhere, you need to go.
Using pollution as an excuse to charge people more to fill empty coffers is an irresponsible and short sighted use of a valuable fiscal instrument.

washman3

COYW wrote: »

No he is being realistic as opposed to living in some leftist wonderland. If people want top class or even better public services then they have to be willing to pay for them. It is pretty obvious that nobody is willing to accept cuts, so we don't really have much of a choice in relation to how the revenue needed to fund the improvements is generated do we?

do you honestly believe we're living in a low tax economy here?
the polluter pays is another way of saying "anglo irish bank needs more cash"
this is another scam like the universal social charge etc.
wake up man,remove the blinkers!! :rolleyes:

djpbarry

washman3 wrote: »

do you honestly believe we're living in a low tax economy here?

Low relative to what? Relative to the level of public services demanded by the electorate? Yes. Relative to other EU states? Yes. Relative to the US? Probably not.

ei.sdraob

djpbarry wrote: »

Low relative to what? Relative to the level of public services demanded by the electorate? Yes. Relative to other EU states? Yes. Relative to the US? Probably not.

Ireland is not low tax

Riskymove

I think people are taking his use of the word 'polluter' too literally; I dont think he meant anything to do with carbon emissions etc

I think he meant, in this scenario, that the people who actually use a particular road should be the ones paying for it and therefore he agrees with the idea of the tolls

djpbarry

ei.sdraob wrote: »

Ireland is not low tax

For an awful lot of people, it is.

anymore

This country has/had a car scrappage scheme whereby the tax payer subsidised the purchase of new petrol/diesel cars ! What happened to the ' polluter pays' principle there ?

Frank Black

Riskymove wrote: »

I think people are taking his use of the word 'polluter' too literally; I dont think he meant anything to do with carbon emissions etc

I think he meant, in this scenario, that the people who actually use a particular road should be the ones paying for it and therefore he agrees with the idea of the tolls

Yep, I would have thought it was quite obvious that this is what he meant although judging from the responses on this thread it seems not. The ‘polluter pays’ and the ‘user pays’ are basically the same principle anyway – it’s about moving away from a system where everybody pays the same amount of tax to a system where those that use a particular service or produce more waste/pollution pay more for that right.
Can’t see how why people should have a problem with that underlying principle and I would hope that the touted new water and property taxes will eventually incorporate the same principle i.e. water charge based on usage and property tax based on site values.

ei.sdraob

The problem is that this tax is nothing more than a revenue raising exercise to fill a large number of government created black holes
and will not actually be used on road construction/maintenance

alot of people thankfully can see thru the usual bull**** and spin

Frank Black

ei.sdraob wrote: »

The problem is that this tax is nothing more than a revenue raising exercise to fill a large number of government created black holes
and will not actually be used on road construction/maintenance

alot of people thankfully can see thru the usual bull**** and spin

I don’t doubt that for a moment –however, to use water tax as an example, just because it will not be used to fund improvements to the water infrastructure of the country doesn’t mean that the tax should be the same for all. A tax based on usage will encourage people to be more mindful of their water consumption.

ei.sdraob

black francis wrote: »

A tax based on usage will encourage people to be more mindful of their water consumption.

Lol thats like worrying about gas mileage while driving a hummer

The leaking pipes should be fixed first before worrying about consumption

Frank Black

ei.sdraob wrote: »

Lol thats like worrying about gas mileage while driving a hummer

The leaking pipes should be fixed first before worrying about consumption

Of course they should - if you live happen to live in an ideal world - lol indeed.

The level of leakage in Irish pipes is pretty standard compared with most industrialised countries actually.

BTW what exactly is 'gas milage' and how does it relate to water charges?

djpbarry

ei.sdraob wrote: »

The leaking pipes should be fixed...

And this will be paid for by ... who?

ei.sdraob

djpbarry wrote: »

And this will be paid for by ... who?

Erm water taxes being used to fix water infrastructure not pay teachers or bailout banks (imagine that!), also councils should reduce their business rates since its this that is paying now for local infrastructure

djpbarry

ei.sdraob wrote: »

Erm water taxes being used to fix water infrastructure...

Sorry, I misread your post.

bmaxi

ei.sdraob wrote: »

The problem is that this tax is nothing more than a revenue raising exercise to fill a large number of government created black holes
and will not actually be used on road construction/maintenance

alot of people thankfully can see thru the usual bull**** and spin

What's more it will be another tax on work. It is conceivable that somebody living in Clonee and working in Sandyford could pay six tolls a day just to get to work. Some might say just reward for not availing of the city's wonderful public transport system:D:D:D.
To my mind it is just more evidence of the Labour party's pretence of being the working man's representative in Government. On top of all the punitive taxes workers have had to endure, we now have to pay another tax to actually get to the place to earn the money to pay the other taxes.
As usual the tax will be felt most by the ordinary worker as the managers and bosses will have their expense accounts and tax write offs to absorb it.

djpbarry

bmaxi wrote: »

As usual the tax will be felt most by the ordinary worker...

What exactly is an "ordinary worker"?

Frank Black

bmaxi wrote: »

What's more it will be another tax on work. It is conceivable that somebody living in Clonee and working in Sandyford could pay six tolls a day just to get to work. Some might say just reward for not availing of the city's wonderful public transport system:D:D:D.
To my mind it is just more evidence of the Labour party's pretence of being the working man's representative in Government. On top of all the punitive taxes workers have had to endure, we now have to pay another tax to actually get to the place to earn the money to pay the other taxes.
As usual the tax will be felt most by the ordinary worker as the managers and bosses will have their expense accounts and tax write offs to absorb it.

It’s all very well complaining about taxes and tolls – and I’m not exactly looking forward to paying them either but what’s the alternative?
Cut back on public expenditure – well people don’t seem to want that either, see Roscommon Hospital protests.
Raise income taxes – even more of a ‘tax on work’.
Raise VAT – lose trade to the North and abroad.
Burn the bondholders – Country goes bankrupt and anarchy descends.

bmaxi

djpbarry wrote: »

What exactly is an "ordinary worker"?

I can only give my opinion of what an ordinary worker is. The very fact you posed that question leads me to suspect you will have your own selective view, as will others.
My own opinion is, an ordinary worker is one who does not have the opportunity to hide behind perks and tax breaks. I am not saying this is necessarily a bad thing but rather that it should be the case for all workers regardless of rank or status and no, I am not a left wing loonie.

djpbarry

bmaxi wrote: »

I can only give my opinion of what an ordinary worker is. The very fact you posed that question leads me to suspect you will have your own selective view, as will others.

Well, no, I don’t. I don’t understand why, in 21st century Ireland, people use terms such as “workers” – it’s ridiculously outdated. Virtually every member of the population is a worker of some description.

bmaxi wrote: »

My own opinion is, an ordinary worker is one who does not have the opportunity to hide behind perks and tax breaks.

Right, so that’s pretty much everyone then?

bmaxi

djpbarry wrote: »

Well, no, I don’t. I don’t understand why, in 21st century Ireland, people use terms such as “workers” – it’s ridiculously outdated. Virtually every member of the population is a worker of some description.
Right, so that’s pretty much everyone then?

Whether or not it's an outdated term is irrelevant, I've given my opinion of what constitutes a worker and yes that description would fit a high proportion of the working population. My point was that those who are not "ordinary workers" will, as usual, be cushioned from the blow.

Liam Byrne

black francis wrote: »

It’s all very well complaining about taxes and tolls – and I’m not exactly looking forward to paying them either but what’s the alternative?
Cut back on public expenditure – well people don’t seem to want that either, see Roscommon Hospital protests.
Raise income taxes – even more of a ‘tax on work’.
Raise VAT – lose trade to the North and abroad.
Burn the bondholders – Country goes bankrupt and anarchy descends.

And yet the last one of those fits the 2 criteria of priorities :

1) It's the one we didn't cause
2) It's the one we get no return from

The anarchy could still arrive if they keep screwing ordinary people for money that we don't have, while refusing point-blank to stop wasting money.

Crazy Horse 6

NekkidBibleMan wrote: »

I currently pass through the M50 toll twice a day. If the toll is increased, I'll be clogging up town with all the other commuters who can't afford to pay it. How's that for business?

No you won't you'll end up paying the toll like everyone else. It's what the Irish do best just get on with it.

CommuterIE

bmaxi wrote: »

Whether or not it's an outdated term is irrelevant, I've given my opinion of what constitutes a worker and yes that description would fit a high proportion of the working population. My point was that those who are not "ordinary workers" will, as usual, be cushioned from the blow.

Could you give your definition of a "worker" please?

Icepick

It sounds just like a figure of speech and it can be read as drivers or motorway users.

anymore wrote: »

This country has/had a car scrappage scheme whereby the tax payer subsidised the purchase of new petrol/diesel cars ! What happened to the ' polluter pays' principle there ?

It was actually profitable for the 'tax payer' thanks to all the taxes and extra employment.

djpbarry

bmaxi wrote: »

Whether or not it's an outdated term is irrelevant, I've given my opinion of what constitutes a worker and yes that description would fit a high proportion of the working population.

And my point is that it would fit a very high proportion of the entire population and, as such, is redundant. I genuinely don't understand why people keep using such terms in this day and age.

bmaxi wrote: »

My point was that those who are not "ordinary workers" will, as usual, be cushioned from the blow.

But you're implying that "managers and bosses" will somehow be cushioned from the blow? So anyone who employs someone else doesn't have to pay tolls? How does that work?

Frank Black

djpbarry wrote: »

But you're implying that "managers and bosses" will somehow be cushioned from the blow? So anyone who employs someone else doesn't have to pay tolls? How does that work?

I think he means that they will be able to claim it back through expenses - which in fairness some unscrupulous managers/bosses might well do.

djpbarry

black francis wrote: »

I think he means that they will be able to claim it back through expenses - which in fairness some unscrupulous managers/bosses might well do.

Ok, fair enough. But I know several tradesmen who have company cars/vans at their disposal, but I bet they still fall into the "ordinary workers" bracket.