Thursday, March 29, 2012
Environment Minister Phil Hogan gave a private apology to Fine Gael TDs last night for the perceived arrogance in his approach to the €100 household charge.
With 1.1m householders still to register just days ahead of the deadline, Mr Hogan has been forced to cancel an OECD trip to Paris to deal with the fiasco.
Only 31,500 homes signed up yesterday, bringing the total registered to 426,599 of 1.6m homes.
Publicly, he has defended his handling of the controversy, insisting he “will not contemplate resigning” if payments remain low after Saturday’s deadline.
However, he told the Fine Gael parliamentary party meeting last night he was sorry that people felt he was arrogant in his approach.
TDs said no apology was demanded of the minister, but he was “trying to explain his side of things, that he had to hold the line”.
He also assured TDs and senators that nobody would end up in court because of a failure to pay the charge, but that penalties would apply to those who failed to register before Saturday.
Finance Minister Michael Noonan told TDs and senators that local authorities who are most successful in convincing their residents to pay would get the most funding from central government in return.
The Government has been unable to provide a breakdown of payment per local authority. Last night’s meeting heard that some areas, such as Dún Laoighre in Dublin, were particularly high, while Donegal had a low rate of registration.
Taoiseach Enda Kenny made a second plea for payments, saying he expected people to “measure up here and come out in big numbers over the next few days and pay their charge”.
During his official visit to China, he said the household charge was “the law of the land” and he expected “people to obey the law”.
So far, €42.7m has been raised from the tax — far short of the €160m the Government had hoped for.
Publicly, Mr Hogan had dismissed claims he had been arrogant. “I certainly don’t believe that I should be any other way, only telling people the consequences if they don’t pay,” he told Today FM.
Asked if he would resign if over half of home owners refuse to pay, he said he has been doing his “level best” to introduce it in a fair way.
At last night’s meeting, he tried to explain his approach to the party, although most members vented their anger at Labour Party ministers rather than Mr Hogan.
“He said he apologised if people thought he was aggressive about the whole thing,” one TD said.
Meanwhile, a group representing older people, Active Retirement Ireland, said the Government should extend the deadline and send out “clear and concise information” to older people on how they can pay it.