This article is from page 19 of the 2012-04-03 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 19 JPG
THE early indications are that Clare is among the top counties in Ireland in terms of collection of the € 100 household charge, a meeting has heard.
Town manager Ger Dollard said yesterday that Clare County Council had indicated that the county is in the “upper echelons of collection of the charge”.
Responding to questions at yesterday’s meeting of Ennis Town Council, Mr Dollard said, “Clare as a county is in the upper half of the table in terms of compliance with the household charge.”
Mr Dollard told the meeting that the charge had been introduced to make up for the reduction in the local government fund.
Reports yesterday indicated that local authorities in counties where there had been a low compliance rate would be penalised by the Department of the Environment.
However Mr Dollard said the council had not received any communication or instruction from the department regarding what “might or might not happen”.
He said there was no indication yet that there would be any impact on Ennis Town Council.
Cllr Tommy Brennan (Ind) questioned whether or not a high compliance rate would result in extra money coming to Clare. He said he was doubtful this would happen, adding that the Government are “codding the people”.
Cllr Frankie Neylon (Ind) told the meeting that he had paid the charge and said he had encouraged householders to do so.
He said that Minister for the Environment, Phil Hogan, had made a “total kibosh” of the introduction of the charge.
He repeated his call for a system to be introduced that would allow hard pressed homeowners to pay of the charge on a weekly basis.
Cllr Neylon said this would allow the Government to make good on a campaign promise to look after the most vulnerable people in society.
He added, “There are people out there who don’t have it. You can’t draw blood from a turnip.”
Cllr Paul O’Shea (Lab) was also staunchly critical of the Government’s handling of the charge.
He said, “It was handled disastrously. Laurel and Hardy would have handled this better.”