Coalition is holding country to ransom

FOR the minister to say that 150 people are holding the vast majority to ransom is rubbish.

Quite the contrary.

Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, the PDs and the Greens stood in the local elections of 1999. Not one of their candidates said anything about introducing bin charges. I am sure if they did, it would have affected their vote, which explains why.

Of course now that they face effective opposition in terms of blockades and direct actions which have brought the issue to a head, they quote the law they changed to suit themselves.

They claim to respect the right to protest and many newspaper editorials say the same. What you really mean is “by all means protest, but don’t be effective”.

In terms of support on the issue, mobilisation of working class communities on this issue has been their biggest since the anti-drugs campaigns of 1996-‘97.

Thousands of people turned out on last Saturday’s march, while hundreds attend meetings in the communities.

It is not hypocrisy for a person entitled to a waiver to be protesting against this issue: experience shows that in other local authorities, once the service is privatised the waiver is abolished.

Newspapers, since the election of the Government in 2002, have bemoaned increased TV licence fees, ESB, phone bills, postage, GP charges and hospital charges.

But on the one issue where ordinary working people are capable of making a stand, the same newspapers hammer the very people who are affected inadvertently by stealth taxation.

Last year the Government would not intervene to save what was a profitable glass bottle recycling company in Ringsend and this year they claim that those opposing their policies do not have a policy on the environment.

They have the lowest public transport subsidy in the EU and claim a monopoly of concern on the issue of the environment.

They are forcing through incinerators, which require an increase in waste in order to be profitable, while claiming their opponents are not interested in the environment.

They call for the resignation of Joe Higgins, who has allegedly brought the Dáil into disrepute, but have little to say about drink-driving tax cheats on their own benches.

What was that about hypocrisy?

As for some basic alternatives, why not tax the producer of waste as in taxing companies who put on unnecessary packaging?

Garrett Mullan,

31, Thormanby Lawns,

Howth,

Co Dublin.