Tag Archives: Phil Hogan

Above: Hogan, Burton and protestors at the National Stadium on Saturday showing the number of people they claim won’t pay the Household charge.

Minister for the Environment Phil Hogan last night flatly contradicted a statement made earlier in the day by Minister for Social Protection Joan Burton.

She suggested at lunchtime yesterday that arrangements were being made to allow people to pay the household charge through their local post office.

Ms Burton also described next Saturday’s deadline for the payment of the charge as “ambitious” although she urged people to pay by the deadline.

Mr Hogan told The Irish Times later that there had been no change in the arrangements for payment of the charge and no change in the deadline.

*popcorn*

Ministers At Odds Over Payment Of Household Charge (Stephen Collins and Fiona Gartland, Irish Times)

Nearly 9,000 Payments Per Hour Needed To Meet Next Friday’s Deadline (Paul Melia, Irish Independent)

(Photocall Ireland)

WHAT reprobate threw half a ham sandwich (with brown sauce on it) at the dignitaries as the float he/she was on passed City Hall on St Patrick’s Day.

The flying missile narrowly missed Chief Supt Mick McGarry and Environment Minister Phil Hogan. Gardai are investigating how the culprit managed to miss the two very tall men.

 

Abhainn Ri Floats Away With Prize (Kilkenny People)

The Household Charge, blustering arrogance and Environment Minister Phil Hogan’s fumbling.

A transcript of Olivia O’Leary’s radio ‘column‘ on last night’s Drivetime:

“I paid my household charge early last week. Just as well I did, because if I’d been listening to Big Phil blustering on the radio on Sunday, I might have been tempted not to. Almost all on his own, Hogan is fast generating for this Government what destroyed the last one – an air of bullying incompetence. It’s a crying shame because there was a really important job of political work to be done here – a widened tax base, which includes annual property taxes, is an essential reform and might have played an important part in dampening the property boom. The problem with introducing that reform is that Irish people have resisted property taxes fiercely for decades. They were bound to resist this one. So they needed to be firmly encouraged, exhorted, guided, given no excuse. Hogan has managed to give them every excuse.

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Mr Hogan alleged that a number of decisions made by Mr Gormley as Minister were designed to deliberately frustrate the process. They included the waste-facility levies capturing large-scale incinerators, a review of waste-management policy and his decision to appoint a senior counsel to brief him on the contracts between local authorities in Dublin and Covanta.

For his part, Mr Gormley had always maintained those decisions were well-grounded and in the best interests of the public.

He also said he believed Mr Hogan’s complaint seemed to have been written on his behalf by Covanta, a claim Mr Hogan angrily denied.

 

Complaint On Gormley And Poolbeg ‘Unfounded’ (Harry McGee, Irish Times)

(Photocall ireland)