Poll boost for anti charges campaign

SUCCESSIVE governments have rued the day that domestic rates were abolished, and the issue of local government has ever since been dominated by the idea of bringing them back.

Fianna Fail, which won the honour of getting rid of them after the "everything must go" election campaign of 1977, had special reason for regret last Wednesday. During the early counts in the Dublin West by election, Mr Joe Higgins, a forthright opponent of service charges, looked like becoming the winner.

In the end, Fianna Fail narrowly held the seat, but there was no joy for Labour. The Tanaiste's party, whose outright opposition to service charges has been softened by the realities of Government, suffered a bloody nose on the day from Mr Higgins, its militant former member.

The by election became almost a national referendum on the service charge issue. It was certainly treated as such by anti charges campaigns around the country, who dispatched goodwill, money and canvassers to Dublin West for the cause.

"Dublin is the `make or break' for our whole campaign, and that's why we threw our support behind Joe Higgins," says Gerry Corbett, PRO of the Galway Combined Residents Associations. "If he'd failed miserably on Tuesday, we were beaten and gone. But he didn't and we're not, and the issue is definitely back on the national agenda now."

The campaign outside Dublin was in need of a fillip. Whereas charges were introduced in the capital (outside the Corporation area) only in 1994, other parts of the country have had them for a decade.

The issue of disconnections, still in its early stages in Dublin, was faced down by Galway campaigners in the early 1990s, when those cut off were reconnected by "leprechauns", according to Gerry Corbett.

"I don't want to use paramilitary language, but we had special squads of people organised to reconnect them and we got them all back on within 24 hours.

Notwithstanding that after seven years of protest, the charges are still in place, the campaign in Galway has had its effect. About 40 per cent are not paying, Mr Corbett says, and the city rate - £66 - is one of the lowest in the country: "That's because every time the estimates meeting comes round, the councillors are afraid of their lives to increase it."

The campaign in Cork was probably more in need of a boost. The protest there has not quite recovered from the heady days of December 1991, when a majority of councillors elected on an anti charges platform threatened to vote the Corporation out of existence rather than strike a rate. But after eight meetings and weeks of exhaustive negotiations, charges were finally agreed by 16 votes to 15.

"We lost four council members one way or another," says school teacher Paddy Mulcahy, one of a group of people who went to jail for refusing to pay. "The campaign lost a bit of momentum after that. But the Corporation is taking a low key approach to the issue now and they aren't disconnecting anyone.

The same election which shed domestic rates from the tax payer's burden also abolished car lax, which was replaced by a "registration fee" of £5. This figure grew in time to become the new car tax, no more or less resented than the old one. But the reintroduction of rates as domestic service charges by the mid 1980s coalition was never going to be so easily accepted.

Indeed, the depth of feeling behind the campaign protesters have gone to jail, there has been at least one hunger strike, and on one occasion in Waterford corporation workmen were "held hostage" after the disconnection of water supplies - suggests that the issue goes beyond mere money.

Joe Higgins explains: "The origin of the water charges was a blatant double cross. People were told that VAT would be increased by 5 per cent to pay for the abolition of rates. VAT went up, PAYE and PRSI went up, and then they hit people through the back door with service charges anyway. That was the last straw for PAYE workers."

Mr Higgins knows that his was a complex vote and that many of those who supported him do not share his politics on other issues. But he is in no doubt the service (charge protest is about the iniquity of the tax system generally.

"The charges were brought in six months after a £500 million tax amnesty write off for the super rich. Now they're robbing PAYE workers of £70 million to pay for beef fraud ... Meanwhile, they're going to drag a 70 year old man into court for not paying water charges."

The 70 year old is a resident of Greenhills, Dublin, who alone of those against whom there have been disconnection orders is refusing to appeal and whose case could yet become a cause celebre for protesters.

Mr Higgins complains that he cannot get accurate figures from local authorities any more, but he estimates that around 50 per cent of Dublin householders are not paying, or are in substantial arrears.

He claims that local authorities have substantially underestimated potential revenue from the start in order to achieve their targets, and high levels of non payment are disguised as "waivers", where householders' inability to pay is offset by the central Exchequer.

Meanwhile, the number of disconnect ion orders obtained against protesters is in low double figures.

"They thought there'd be thousands by now but it's only a tiny handful. That's a huge achievement for our campaign," Mr Higgins says.