Government quakes as a massive 3000 people attend national property tax protest

Einhard wrote: »

So you can afford the charge, but refuse to pay it anyway? Must be a principled stand then- can I ask how exactly this charge so greviously offends your principle?

Well I can't speak for the other chap, but my issue is not with paying tax, it's with paying tax knowing it'll be pissed into the same bottomless pit of inefficiency that is the public purse of Ireland. Given it's for the councils? This goes quadruple.

Again, fair enough. How exactly do you propose we close the massive current deficit? And please...don't bring up the bank bailout. It's a simple fact that we are spending more than we receive in taxes, and that has precious little to do with banks.

I agree. The bank bailout is another matter entirely. How do we close it? Streamline the public purse. Its long overdue. Reduce the number of councils and councilors for a start. Where areas of expenditure are clearly run arseways fire them out to tender and let private companies take over. Kill off or severely reduce all vanity projects. Overseas aid going by the last figures I've seen is running at half a billion euro per year. Lovely thought, but we simply can't afford it at nearly 4 times what this council tax will bring in. It would be akin to a family where the breadwinners lost their jobs still keeping a monthly direct debit to Concern. Daft. Serve us far better to plough some of that money into direct help for both Ireland and third world nations through building mutually profitable businesses. Locally? Switch off half the street lights in suburban areas. On motorways like the M50 only have them on at junctions. That's why I have headlights on my car. Local facilities? Repair, don't upgrade. Kill off all quangos and commitaaaays. There are far too many of them, they cost far too much, smack of "jobs for the baays" and rarely bring anything approaching results. If two government depts. aren't communicating you don't need a bunch of overpaid consultants sitting down for 12 months to work out why. Rather than doing things to be seen doing things, just bloody do them. It's rarely the rocket science these consultants claim. Well of course turkeys won't vote for xmas so... Streamline social welfare. Do far more means testing. Just on my limited personal experience of folks I know in receipt of SW, some are simply getting too much, while others are barely scraping by. I doubt my experience is unusual. This goes double for pensioners. IMHO if you have a private pension above say 20k a year you shouldn't get public money. An uncle of mine has a private pension income of over 60k a year and yet still gets his SW pension and all the freebies. Make third level education pay for itself more. That's a subject in of itself as is the long in coming restructuring of our health service. Look I fully admit to being a rank amateur looking in, but even as a rank amateur I can see it.

I see Ireland like this: We're like a family who can't budget for the times. When the family was in full employment they thought they were actually millionaires and spent accordingly racking up huge debts on mad stuff. "But sure we're fine we can make the monthly payments". Then one breadwinner lost their job, but still the family kept spending with a small nod to "ah we'll only have one foreign holiday this year" as an "economising" measure. I certainly wouldn't give such a family more money to chase after all the other money pissed up a wall. It would make no sense. Start cutting their cloth to their measure and I'll be there with the cheque book.