Sir, – Vincent J Lavery (March 22nd) admonishes Angela Morris, (March 20th) for advocating non-compliance with this controversial household tax and claims that “no citizen in a democracy has the right to break the laws that he/she does not like without going through the Gandhi/King rules on civil disobedience”.
Even if one accepts his premise, are not the rights to peaceful protest and freedom of expression not an integral part of a functional democracy? To deny these would result in a situation akin to what most right-thinking people are currently denouncing in “democratic” Russia.
Furthermore, what if one follows Mr Lavery’s point to its logical conclusion? At what point is it acceptable for the citizen in a democracy to question the equity of the effects of legislation? Would Mr Lavery continue to advocate meek acceptance of this iniquitous imposition if it rose to €200, €500, €1,000 per annum, regardless of individual means? – Yours, etc,
Sir, – I must take issue with Breandán Ó Corráin (March 22nd) when he states that the taxpayer provides between €35 and €40 million to run the Property Registration Authority. He makes no mention of the revenue returned to the exchequer from the authority – and indeed it returned a surplus to the exchequer for a good many years during the property boom.
He further states that the Property Registration Authority replaced the Land Registry and the Registry of Deeds. It did in title, but these two bodies still operate two different systems of land registration in the State, one for registered and one for unregistered titles.
To suggest that the PRA could be used to facilitate the Government’s urgency in ascertaining “who owns what” is just not practical. – Yours, etc,