Councils punished for household charge failure – Collins

THE government has attempted to shift the blame for the failure in the Household Charge “fiasco” by punishing local authorities, according to an opposition deputy. Niall Collins TD says that Limerick city and county councils are facing punishment in the form of cuts to services over the non-payment of the charge. “At the weekend we saw government ministers trying to shift blame onto local authority workers in Limerick and across the country for the mess that Phil Hogan has created over the Household Charge”, said Deputy Collins. 

“Now it is reported that Minister Hogan will punish those areas where the charge has not been successfully collected, by cutting local services to the entire community.
“Let us be clear, this fiasco is not the fault of local authority workers in Limerick or anywhere else;  This is entirely Phil Hogan and the government’s fault as they made a mess of this from the beginning by forcing a flat-rate charge on people, regardless of their ability to pay, by failing to provide the proper information to the public and by failing to allow people to pay in a variety of ways”.
He claimed that the government wants to blame ordinary council workers to “save face”. “I am asking local Fine Gael and Labour Oireachtas members if they stand by their colleagues’ claims that gaps in Household Charge payments locally are the fault of Limerick City and County Council workers, and not the Government?
He said he will also seek their position on Minister Hogan’s plans to cut local services if the government has not succeeded in collecting the Household Charge from all homes across County Limerick”.