The Campaign Against Household and Water Taxes (CAHWT) has condemned as “pure scaremongering” claims by the Minister for Justice that fines for non-payment of the household tax could be taken from people’s pay.
The fact is that no law exists allowing the government to deduct either the household tax or fines from pay or welfare,” said Cllr. Ruth Coppinger, CAHWT spokesperson. “The only way in which a fine could ever be imposed is to summons a person to court, hear their case, find against them and then, at the judge’s discretion, impose a fine. Any non-payers taken to court would receive legal advice and support from the Campaign, and their court appearances would be the focus of large protests of their fellow non-payers.
The building of a campaign of mass non-registration is now a reality with huge organising meetings taking place around the country. If mass non-registration exists by the end of March, it will be impossible for the government to take hundreds of thousands of people though the court system,” Cllr. Coppinger continued.
To attempt to take fines from people’s wages or welfare, the government would have to introduce new legislation,” said Gregor Kerr spokesperson for CAHWT. “If they attempt to do this in the face of a mass popular campaign of resistance to the household tax, they will be met with a wave of protest.
Our Campaign has noted these heavy handed scaremongering tactics against those boycotting an unfair tax, as opposed to the light touch being shown to super-wealthy people who crashed the economy in the first place,” Mr. Kerr continued. “Irish people have a chance to make history over the next 8 weeks by collectively refusing to cooperate with this troika-imposed austerity measure. Mr. Shatter and his colleagues should stop their attempts at scaremongering and get ready to deal with the political reality of being told by hundreds of thousands of people that their household tax is unacceptable.
