Hogan urges authorities to 'pull out all the stops' in collecting charge

Environment Minister Phil Hogan has said he is examining the idea of rewarding local authorities which "pull out all the stops" to collect outstanding household charge payments.

It has been confirmed that over 800,000 households had registered and paid the charge by the deadline of midnight last night.

Minister Hogan today thanked all those "who had carried out their patriotic duty and paid the charge".

"As I have said previously this money will be used to fund vital local services in your local areas," he said in a statement.

"The more that is paid and collected the better the quality of services to be provided locally."

Minister Hogan said that while he "would have preferred not to have had to introduce this charge", Ireland is "one of the last countries in Europe not to pay for essential local services through a locally-based tax".

Local authority workers will now make efforts to find those who missed last night's deadline.

However, an argument has broken out over the number of dwellings liable to register for the new property tax.

Department officials maintain more than half of their 1.6 million figures have registered, but opponents claim it is as high as 1.86 million.

Paul McSweeney, chief executive of the Local Government Management Agency (LGMA), which is collecting the funds, said the exact number of liable households is not clear.

“There are a number of exemptions, so there are a number of households throughout the country that will never appear on this register, so nobody knows what the figure is,” he added.

Local authority housing and properties held in trust, with a charity or with the Health Service Executive are exempt.

More than 805,000 households registered up to last night’s deadline – raising €62.1m.

Mr Hogan said the LGMA still has sacks of mail to open and process, and is expecting a massive influx of postal applications throughout next week.

“In spite of the opposition to the charge, the majority of householders have the paid the charge and I am appealing to local authorities to be businesslike in collecting the outstanding charges, and I’m examining the principle of better rewarding those LAs (local authorities) that pull out all the stops to collect the charge,” he added.

The Government had hoped the charge would generate some €160m in total and is expected to start fining those who fail to pay. The Cabinet will meet on Tuesday to discuss the issue.

Socialist Party TD Joe Higgins, who yesterday led a 5,000-strong protest against the charge through Dublin during the Fine Gael ard fheis, disputed Government figures.

The latest Census found the country’s total housing stock grew to almost 2 million homes last year, including 1.65 million private households.

Mr Higgins maintained that when 129,000 local authority homes are subtracted from the total, just 43% of 1.86 million liable households have registered.

“That means 57% have not registered,” he said. “A majority, quite categorically, have not registered as of last night.

“On all fronts, this has been a huge failure for the Government.

“I think it is extraordinary that one year after the Fine Gael and Labour Party won a landslide in the election that the majority of the population is now in outright opposition.”

Health Minister Dr James Reilly criticised TDs and Senators who campaigned for non-payment of the charge.

“More than half of our householders have paid this and I believe the rest will follow,” he said.

“I really do decry those who call themselves public representatives and lawmakers, encouraging others to be law breakers.

“This tax is not going to go away, the charge will stay there. It’s on the house and it will be paid eventually, one way or the other.

“I don’t believe that we will have to chase people down. I believe that as people realise it has to be paid it will be paid.”

Meanwhile Sinn Féin accused Minister Hogan of "monumental hypocrisy" today citing a newspaper report claiming that he had refused to pay a €4,320 service charge on his holiday apartment in Portugal.

The Sunday Independent this morning reported that Minister Hogan had refused to pay the charges relating to his property in Villamoura on the Algarve over a dispute with the apartment complex's management company.

"Would you pay a charge if you were unhappy with the service?" the Independent quoted him as saying.

"Minister Hogan is guilty of monumental hypocrisy," Sinn Féin Councillor Mícheál Mac Donncha said.

"He expects the Irish people to pay a regressive Household Charge to fill the banking black hole and while local government and other services continue to be cut.

"Many thousands of those on whom he has imposed the Household Charge also have to pay management fees, very often for services that are very badly provided or not provided at all."

Sinn Féin is to table an emergency motion at tomorrow night's meeting of Dublin City Council calling for the repeal of the household charge, Cllr Mac Donncha said.