Last Saturday’s rally in Ireland organised by the Campaign against Household and Water
Taxes (CAHWT) demonstrated clearly that the opposition to the Household
Taxes is likely to be a major thorn in the side of Fine Gael and Labour
over the next period. The immediate problem for the Department of the
Environment, Community and Local Government however is not the 3,000
people who attended the rally at the National Stadium and those who
attended the other rallies. It’s the fact that only 328,201 households
have registered for the Household tax, from a total of more or less 1.6
million.
Last Saturday’s rally in Ireland organised by the Campaign against Household and Water
Taxes (CAHWT) demonstrated clearly that the opposition to the Household
Taxes is likely to be a major thorn in the side of Fine Gael and Labour
over the next period. The immediate problem for the Department of the
Environment, Community and Local Government however is not the 3,000
people who attended the rally at the National Stadium and those who
attended the other rallies. It’s the fact that only 328,201 households
have registered for the Household tax, from a total of more or less 1.6
million.
Although the threat of fees and interest charges may push more people
to register over the next few days, the mass refusal to do so means
that this is far more than a simple administrative measure for the
government. It is already a major political issue. For example If Phil
Hogan imagines that Council workers will be happy knocking on the door
to register people, then he may get a rude awakening.
The experience of the attempt to impose water charges in the 1990’s will not have bypassed the government either.
There are of course many similarities with the campaign against the
Poll Tax in Britain from 1988 through to the early 1990’s. But there are
some important differences also. One of Thatcher’s blunders was to
impose taxes directly onto every man and woman in the country, scrapping
the Rates System. The net effect was to polarize the debate between the
gainers and the losers. There were far more losers than gainers,
particularly on the Scottish Housing Schemes and in the working class
districts of all the major towns and cities. The government are clearly
using the Household Tax as “the thin end of the wedge”, trying to
introduce it at a relatively low rate, which they can then raise and
raise over time. Their problem however is that everyone is a loser to
one extent or another, after all the Rates were abolished in Ireland
many years ago.
Here is the Press release about the new tax issued by the Department
of the Environment, Community and Local Government on December 5th last year; it is notable for the upfront admission that the Tax is being imposed “in line with the requirement in the EU/IMF Programme of Financial Support for Ireland”. In other words… “They made me do it”:
The Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government,
Mr. Phil Hogan, T.D. today (5 December, 2011) announced the
publication of the Bill to provide for the introduction of the Household
Charge of €100 to fund vital local services in line with the
requirement in the EU/IMF Programme of Financial Support for Ireland.
The Government had announced, in July, 2011, its intention to introduce
the Household Tax in 2012.
The Minister stressed the Government’s firm commitment to
introduce a valuation based property tax to replace the Household
Charge. The Minister indicated that work is to commence early in the new
year on the development of the property tax.
“A full property tax,
requiring a property valuation system, will take time to implement, so
the Government is introducing the interim Household Charge to apply to
the majority of owners of residential property in the State. I will
establish an inter-Departmental expert group to advise me, by mid 2012,
on the design, scope and implementation of the property tax,” the
Minister stated.
For the Fine Gael and Labour coalition however this area is a
minefield. Regardless of the fact that the Household Tax is far lower
than the Poll Tax was when it was introduced in Scotland and then
England and Wales, it is just as regressive, the poor will still pay the
same as the rich. It is also another imposition on working people.
Under the last Dáil FF and the Greens brought in the Pension Levy and
the Income Levy, there were austerity budgets and emergency budgets
also. This is merely a further imposition.
Over the last few years there has been plenty of talk about a
Property Tax as a way of “extending the tax base” of the government. The
truth is however that there are plenty of other ways of raising taxes
in Ireland, for example taxing the rich. The Household Tax is merely a
convenient way; once again, of making workers pay for the crisis. The
Household Tax is also a way of shifting the responsibility for funding
local government away for the Government and onto the Councillors.
Indeed the money (if they manage to collect it) will only be used to
shore up the Councils against cuts imposed from the government.
For the Labour leadership however, the threat of widespread,
protracted working class opposition is a major problem. The argument
that they were in Government to protect working people was always
bordering on the spurious, with the temperature rising in the Public
Sector over the Croke Park Agreement and now a second front over the
Household Tax, the tensions within the Party can only be exacerbated.
Even with a sizeable number of TD’s Labour is not immune to the same
pressures that affected the Green Party in the last coalition as the
Junior Partner.
The Campaign has quite rightly been taken up by the ULA TD’s and
Councillors and by the left groups. SP Councillor Ruth Coppinger is
leading the campaign and the ULA TD’s were in evidence today. There have
been several demonstrations across the state. While this campaign will
give a good platform for the lefts, it is not however without risks.
Unlike a strike or a demonstration, a campaign of non registration
and non-payment does not automatically result in a mobilization of the
members or bus loads of workers turning out with placards. That is a
relatively easy event to intervene in. The Campaign against the Water
tax in the 1990’s was protracted , as was the Anti Poll Tax Campaign in
Britain.
Neither resulted in an immediate victory, but the Poll Tax served to
seriously undermine Thatcher who eventually resigned. For the Militant
Tendency (forerunner of both the Socialist Appeal (the International
Marxist Tendency in Britain) and the Socialist Party of England and
Wales and the now separate Socialist Party of Scotland) the success of
leading the mass campaign also had the effect of distorting the work of
the organisation.
As Rob Sewell Editor of Socialist Appeal explained in an article written in 2004:
“Our mass work around the Poll Tax placed colossal pressure on
the comrades, especially in the localities, and the burden, which was
increasing, was falling on fewer and fewer shoulders. We were beginning
to fall victim to the limitations of “single issue” politics and the
work was becoming more and more unbalanced. This had very negative
consequences.
There were a lot of frustrations at the time. For instance, at a
national meeting of regional representatives in September 1990, alarm
was raised that the tendency was locked into the Poll Tax struggle, with
no time for anything else. It was reported that our full-timers had
become anti-Poll Tax full-timers, and our comrades were substituting
themselves for the working class. The organisation department was
becoming increasingly an anti-Poll Tax department and we were
over-stretched and in danger of running the tendency into the ground.
In fact, we had boxed ourselves into a corner. The pressures were
bearing down on us from all sides. The tendency seemed to be
continually on a war footing, leaping from one action to the next, one
court case to the next, and one confrontation with the bailiffs to the
next. The problem was that our successes in the Poll Tax campaign went
to some comrades’ heads. To use a phrase of Stalin, they were “dizzy
with success”.”
How the Militant was built and how it was destroyed
The ULA, is weaker and far more diverse politically than the Militant
Tendency in Britain was at the time of the Poll Tax, the risk is that
this campaign like the Campaign against the Water Tax also, could
generate a lot of activity placing enormous burdens on the limited human
and political resources of the ULA. Sure, there have been very well
attended meetings and events throughout the state, but this is going to
be a long battle. The campaign must be linked to the struggle to defend
the Public Sector against the impositions of the government and the
ECB/IMF. It should also make demands on the Labour Party members,
patiently explaining the role of the Labour leaders.
The public sector workers not only have to pay this tax, but they
also have to collect it. They represent a reservoir of support for a
struggle with the government. Likewise, although the Labour Party
leadership have swallowed the Fine Gael bait hook, line and sinker many
ordinary members are deeply unhappy with the direction that Gilmore is
taking them. Labour’s support has plummeted. There’s never been a better
time to argue for breaking the coalition. The forthcoming demonstration
at the Irish Labour Conference in Galway is an important opportunity to do
so.
