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THE SOCIALIST PARTY’S Joe Higgins has encouraged the public to boycott the government’s planned €100 household charge – saying the government could not “coerce” over 1.5 million households.
Speaking in the Dáil this morning, Higgins said the charge – which will require households to register with their local authority before March next year – was an opportunity for the public to “have their own referendum on these ruinous austerity policies”.
“We will arrive at the end of March with the vast bulk of the 1.6 million householders having boycotted this registration,” Higgins predicted, saying the boycott could “break this unjust tax”.
Taoiseach Kenda Kenny defended the charge, which is required under the EU-IMF programme, by saying the charge was the equivalent of €2 per week and that the government had made many exemptions for people receiving rent supplement or other benefits.
Two opposition TDs yesterday said they were prepared to break the law and neither register for, nor pay, the €100 charge.
Speaking in last night’s Dáil debates on legislation formally introducing the charge, the Socialist Party’s Clare Daly and independent TD Thomas Pring both said they would not pay the charge.
Daly, a TD for Dublin North, said the government’s plans for the charge – which is required under the terms and conditions of the EU-IMF deal – were “reprehensible”.
She also feared that the charge could be raised by up to €1,000 in the next “two to three years”, the Irish Times quotes her as saying.
Daly encouraged the public simply not to register for the charge, telling environment minister Phil Hogan: “You can’t bring everyone to court.”
Pringle, meanwhile, told the Dáil that he would also not register for the charge – saying it was a measure “too far” for struggling households.
He added that he would support those who refused to register with the local authority.
Debates on the Bill will continue in the Dáil today.
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RTE did record a lot of stuff on tape, which was at the time prohibitively expensive, and was as a matter of course, recorded over, in order to cut costs.
Sad, but nothing unusual, as even the BBC did likewise, consigning much of their earlier stuff to the dustbin of history. Even now, many BBC releases, such as Dad’s Army, are partly comprised of home recordings made by viewers.
What stood to RTE was that they were more reliant on film, and as such that tended to survive.
As a matter of fact, RTE have an excellent repository, as borne out by much of Brendan Balfe’s work, down through the years. It’s a fairly safe bet that he will have a hand in this project. I have to give them credit for this, as a history buff myself, I’ll find it interesting.
Balfe relies on audio, and probably a personal archive too, video is very different. My problem is not with reusing tape but recording over significant footage blithely.
Haven’t they wiped most of the stuff before 1980? No Late Late archive to speak of and hardly any home produced programming from 60s has survived.
We’ll soon find out.
Think of the physical space required to keep long running shows like the Late Late or the Den archived – it’s no surprise they couldn’t keep it all!
Wonder if they’ll have that Prime Time Investigates show up?
Seriously though, I can’t imagine an organisation as overpaid and inept as RTE having the amount of organisation and talent it takes to organise a serious archive.
Haven’t they wiped a huge amount of stuff? No Late Late archive to speak of and little or no home produced programming from 60s has survived.
Yep.
Would they show the famous prime time interview c. 1997 of the fine gael leadership candidates. specifically enda kenny babbling waffle when he was asked about his economic policies. The look on his face was like a kid doing the leaving cert just realising he had studied the wrong paper. And that will explain why I could NEVER vote for FG
Don’t we see enough of Gay Byrne? Young people leaving by the thousand and he has so many income streams it is immoral. Just because his greed got him into trouble financially RTE and The government bail him out. Just like the developers he gets helped out by the taxpayer all because he gambled. He is a greedy guts with a smirk on his face because he can get away with this appalling behaviour. I bet he goes to mass on Sunday’s as well as he is typical of our politicians,developers,and bankers – all smug immoral cheats. I think Gay would let his kids emigrate instead of giving one of them just one of his jobs. RTE equal opportunities employer my xxxx
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