Madam, - Rather than simply accepting Mr Justice O'Neill's judgment in the case of Joe Higgins TD and Cllr Clare Daly, I would suggest that it is the fundamental obligation of every citizen to question unjust laws.
Your Editorial of September 20th fails do this and, in a manner more in keeping with the English Daily Mail, questions "unlawful campaigns against policies decided democratically at local level".
No one person has ever been elected specifically on a pro-bin charge ticket and I doubt if anyone ever will. Galway City Council is currently attempting to pass by-laws concerning the public right of assembly that are non-constitutional and against the UN Declaration of Human Rights. Would you accept these laws if passed by a handful of local councillors?
You fail sufficiently to contrast the severity of the sentence and the willingness of the police to pursue this matter with other flagrant breaches of the law of contempt, the refusal to pay tax elsewhere in Ireland and known incidents of dumping waste.
You cite waiver schemes when, in a letter on the same page, Jim O'Sullivan points out that no such scheme exists in Sligo. Do you believe that privatised companies will continue to operate any existing schemes once they own the right to operate local services?
You cite the principle that the polluter should pay. Households currently account for 1.5 per cent of the waste produced in Ireland and are often helpless to prevent the mass of waste packaging dumped on them as consumers. Polluters should indeed be made to pay, but you failed to point out just who they are.
You claim that bin charges encourage recycling when in Waterford it has been shown merely to increase the burning of household waste - hardly an example of environmental progress.
If, as you say, this is a matter for general political debate, I hope the level of debate is better informed and less reactionary than your Editorial. - Yours, etc.,
ADRIAN WHITE, Leyburn, North Yorkshire, England.
Madam, - I spoke recently with a Dutch friend about the bin tax controversy. She pays €2000 council tax plus charges for her bins, water and sewerage, plus higher income tax.
She could not believe we were complaining.
This set me thinking. Joe Higgins says that "the rich" should pay, but I cannot think of a single industrialised nation where "the rich" pay high taxes and the ordinary working Joe (pardon the pun) pays the relatively low taxes we pay here.
In the Nordic social democracies, the model to which many of us aspire, everybody pays high taxes, but this is not what Joe Higgins is selling.
I wonder: is Joe Higgins actually a socialist, or merely a populist who will tell people what they want to hear? Supposing he was Taoiseach, and implemented heavy taxes against "the rich". What would happen? They'd probably leave, go to a less taxing climate, as happened in Britain in the 1970s, and then what? Who pays the high taxes then? Sean Citizen, that's who, and Joe Higgins is being economical with the truth in not telling people this.
His other declaration, that the State has cut taxes on businesses is correct - except that he neglects to inform people of the effects of this, in particular the fall in unemployment from 19 per cent to 5 per cent.
We are nine months from the local elections, and if Joe Higgins's party wins 13 seats in Dublin Fingal he can run the county, abolish the bin tax and triple the commercial rate. But he is not telling anyone this, because I suspect he would he horrified if his party was ever put in a position of actually having to make decisions. - Yours, etc.,
JASON O'MAHONY, Coppinger Glade, Stillorgan, Co Dublin.
Madam, - Which is the more serious offence - obstructing a bin lorry for a few days or a tribunal for an extended period? - Yours, etc.,
BRIAN FLANAGAN, Ardmeen Park, Blackrock, Co Dublin.
Madam, - Why should Joe Higgins not be jailed? Just because he is a "socialist" does not give him the right to object in any illegal way.
He must object within the law, just like the rest of us. - Yours, etc.,
JENNIFER HEGARTY-OWENS, Beauparc, Navan, Co Meath.