Household charge legislation available in Irish next week

AN IRISH-language version of the household charge legislation will be available next week, the language commissioner said yesterday.

An Coimisinéir Teanga, Seán Ó Cuirreáin, was speaking after the High Court yesterday granted leave to challenge the charge on the grounds that legislation underpinning it had not been published in Irish.

Mr Ó Cuirreáin said both English and Irish print versions of the legislation were “with the printers”. They would be available for purchase in the Government Publications Office next week.

The English language version only was available online but the law allowed for the publication of acts in one language only on the internet “as an interim measure”, he said on RTÉ radio yesterday.

There was a “secondary issue” in relation to the statutory instrument which the Oireachtas translation unit was “aware of”, he said.

Earlier Fianna Fáil spokesman on the environment Niall Collins said the legislation had potential to “unravel”.

“I think the court challenge has thrown doubt and will throw confusion into people’s minds and I think that needs to be cleared up.”

Mr Collins said it was “very worrying” that fewer than 15 per cent of people had paid the £100 charge with a fortnight to the deadline. That showed “the Government has got this wrong”, and had not “recognised people’s inability to pay”. He was referring to lack of exemptions for unemployed people, pensioners and those in mortgage arrears.

Meanwhile a group of nine independent and United Left Alliance TDs said a “massive boycott” of the charge was evident from 1.5 million households that had not yet registered ahead of the March 31st deadline.

The lack of registration “vindicated” the stand taken by the TDs who have called for a mass boycott of the household charge, Socialist TD Joe Higgins said yesterday.

There was a “fight ahead” but there was a “huge momentum” in the campaign. The group acknowledged that the number of householders paying the charge would increase before the deadline.

Independent TD Luke Flanagan said the campaign had momentum. “It’s starting to look like a lot of people who might have considered paying it are now not going to pay it because they see their neighbour isn’t paying it, their brother and sister aren’t paying it,” Mr Flanagan said.

Mr Higgins said that if the Government decided to prosecute those who boycotted the charge, the campaigners “will go in their thousands to the courts and make it a major political issue”.

The group is demanding that the Government removes the legislation and the charge. The TDs making the call are United Left Alliance TDs Clare Daly, Joan Collins, Joe Higgins and Richard Boyd Barrett, and Independent TDs Thomas Pringle, Luke Flanagan, John Halligan, Mick Wallace and Séamus Healy.

More than 200,000 people have registered for the charge which has so far generated about €20 million for the State. If collected in full, it would be worth €160 million for the Government.