Three property owners have paid over €30,000 in household charges

THREE PROPERTY owners have paid between €30,000 and €40,000 through multiple liabilities for the controversial €100 household charge, Minister for the Environment Phil Hogan has confirmed.

The three own between 300 and 400 properties that were liable for the charge.

A further four property owners have paid between €20,000 and €30,000, with 29 paying between €10,000 and €20,000 in connection with the charge.

In a written Dáil response to Gerald Nash TD (Labour), Mr Hogan said that in figures provided by the Local Government Management Agency (LGMA), a further 103 property owners have paid between €5,000 and €10,000.

The Minister confirmed that 548,228 property owners have paid the €100 on the one home, with 88,255 paying the property charge for two to 10 homes.

Some 1,262 paid the tax on between 11 and 20 homes, with 279 paying the levy on between 21 to 30 homes, while a further 123 paid between €3,100 to €4,000 on the 31 to 40 homes they own.

Sixty-two property owners paid between €4,100 and €5,000 arising from the tax.

As of noon last Friday, some 940,437 households, or 59 per cent of the estimated 1.6 million eligible, had paid the charge.

Separate Department figures show that 24,098 people have paid penalties for late payment of the charge so far. These late payment penalties have raised €267,039.

Meanwhile, the Campaign Against Household and Water Charges has called on its members to vote No in the upcoming treaty referendum.

An overwhelming majority endorsed a motion calling for its members to reject the treaty at the first national conference of the campaign on Saturday. More than 300 members of the group attended the conference.

The group also endorsed a motion urging their members to actively campaign to defeat the treaty over the next two weeks.

Socialist Party TD for Dublin North, Clare Daly, said the Government would be prosecuting people for the non-payment of charges in the coming months and urged the member to vote No on May 31st.

“They [the Government] hope that by staying quiet over the next few weeks then they can con people into voting Yes. After that we have to be ready for significant upping of the ante from this Government,” she said.

Teacher and mother-of-two Ann Conway from Dublin said a Yes vote would give the Government a mandate to implement more cuts. “I work in a disadvantaged school and we have cuts right across the board. The ordinary people are paying the price for the people at the top of society, the bondholders and the bankers. It’s an absolute scandal and it is economic terrorism.”

However, the director general of Ibec claimed yesterday that gas and electricity bills could go up in the aftermath of a No vote to the fiscal treaty.

Danny McCoy was speaking at a business briefing on the referendum in Clery’s department store in Dublin, where the employers’ group argued for a Yes vote.

He said that although the Irish State could not currently borrow on the international bond markets, utility companies such as ESB Ireland, Bord Gáis and Bord na Móna were still raising money on the bond markets.

“If there’s a No vote, there will be less confidence in Irish companies, it will be more expensive for them to raise money and we could see our domestic bills going up. It may not happen, but it could.”