Introduction

One of the most significant struggles to affect working class people in Ireland in recent years took place in the autumn of 2003.

This battle was between the anti-bin tax campaigns and the combined power of the four councils covering the whole of Dublin, particularly Fingal Council, the Fianna Fail/PD coalition government and the Irish state. The battle against the bin tax exploded in September 2003 and was a dominant national issue for the rest of the year.

The background to this battle was a 20-year strategy by various governments to introduce a local taxation system in the form of local authority service charges. Campaigns against service charges have taken place at different points over those 20 years. An attempt to bring in water charges in three of the four councils was successfully defeated in 1996 by a mass non-payment campaign organised by the Federation of Dublin Anti-Water Charge Campaigns, in which the Socialist Party was the leading force working alongside activists in the communities. This victory resulted in the abolition of water charges right throughout the country.

The changes in tax rates since then has not altered the unjust nature of the tax system and the vast bulk of total tax is still paid by PAYE workers, while the rich and big business have benefited from countless tax loopholes and cuts.

The battle in the autumn of 2003 took place following ongoing work to establish anti-bin tax campaigns after the four councils in Dublin (Fingal County Council, Dublin City Council, South Dublin County Council and Dun Laoghaire/Rathdown County Council) brought in different versions of the bin tax. The Socialist Party was central to the establishment of the anti-bin tax campaigns in all four areas with the aim of mobilising a mass campaign of non-payment of the bin tax as the basis to try to force the government to abolish this form of double taxation.

In the Fingal County Council area the Socialist Party and our two elected public representatives at the time, Joe Higgins TD (Dublin West) and Councillor Clare Daly (Swords), had established an important base of support in many working class communities through many years of campaigning work. Due to this work the anti-bin tax campaign was established across the Fingal area.

The government and the local authorities engaged in a political PR campaign to try to convince the majority of people that it was necessary to impose a charge for refuse collection in the interests of the environment. The main premise to their argument was that a charge would encourage people to re-cycle and therefore reduce the amount of waste going to landfill. However this was and is a dishonest argument, a cleverly marketed cover for their real agenda which is to cut central government funding to local authorities through the imposition of local taxation and also prepare local authority services such as refuse collection for privatisation.

From the outset, the anti-bin tax campaigns based themselves on the tactic of organised, mass non-payment of the bin tax. The Socialist Party also recognised, and consistently raised in the anti-bin tax campaigns that the councils, backed up by the government, would eventually try to counter non-payment by refusing to collect the bins of non-payers. When the councils imposed non-collection of refuse, the anti-bin tax battle would therefore enter a new decisive phase. It would be necessary to mobilise working class communities to actively engage in a campaign of community-based direct action to try to force the councils and the government to retreat. We understood that if they proved successful in imposing non-collection of bins that mass non-payment would be decisively diminished and the charge would become established.

The mood of opposition to the bin tax was clearly demonstrated on many occasions. However, at the same time, the Socialist Party recognised that many people were not confident that the charges could be defeated. The lack of confidence was an important, complicating factor in the struggle.

The Socialist Party believed that the outcome of the battle would be determined by how successful the campaigns were in defeating the policy of non-collection. Success would depend on how the anti-bin tax campaigns that had been built and the ability of these campaigns to mobilise large numbers of local people and activists willing to participate in action against non-collection.

It is no accident that the political establishment decided to take on the anti-bin tax campaign in the Fingal County Council area first. They understood that if they could defeat the campaign in Fingal with its strong base of support and prominent leaders like Cllr. Clare Daly and Joe Higgins TD, that would make the job of imposing the bin tax throughout the Dublin area much easier.

The imposition of non-collection of refuse in Fingal in September 2003 was immediately met by a sustained campaign of resistance by the Fingal anti-bin tax campaign (ABTC). Anti-bin tax activists and Socialist Party members blockaded the council’s bin trucks in housing estates and at the central depot, causing massive disruption to the service for many weeks. The campaign’s aim was to force the council to collect the bins of non-payers and to cause as much disruption as possible to the refuse collection service as the best way of forcing the council to retreat.

On a daily basis anti-bin tax activists were confronted by the Gardai and threatened with arrest and imprisonment. Despite these threats, the jailing of Joe Higgins and Clare Daly and vilification by the media, anti-bin tax activists and the Socialist Party fought the battle against non-collection in Fingal to the very end. The battles against the bin tax in Fingal, in South County Dublin in early 2004 and some parts of Dublin City are a precursor of the community struggles and class battles that will develop in the years ahead. It is an indication of the anger and determination that exists that twenty-two activists went to prison on the principle of opposing double taxation and defending their communities. Opposition to the bin tax is continuing today but at a much lower intensity. The pushing back of the campaigns in Fingal and South Dublin has resulted in a diminishing of non-payment levels in all the council areas.

The battle in the Autumn of 2003 was a litmus test for all the parties and groups on the left. It will become a reference point for future struggles by working class people against neo-liberalism and the assault on workers’ rights by capitalism. This battle has thrown up many issues that need to be addressed and is rich in lessons, which if assimilated will be a big assist in organising working class struggle in the years ahead.

When the battle was raging in Fingal, many of the campaigns and activists in other council areas tried to do what they could to support the campaign in Fingal. They correctly understood that the battle in Fingal was of decisive importance to the whole struggle throughout Dublin. However some leaders of the campaign, in the Dublin City Council area in particular, didn’t respond appropriately. In fact instead of supporting Fingal by organising serious disruption of the bin service in their own council areas, some in the city campaign adopted an extremely conservative approach to the struggle. They ditched the tactics and methods of struggle that had been established through past struggles including the anti-water charges battle, and their inaction at a time when the campaigns everywhere needed to go on the offensive made it much more difficult for the struggle to achieve its full potential.

Everybody and every organisation make mistakes. Mistakes are inevitable. What is necessary is to be open to review and correct mistakes in an honest fashion. The conservative approach that emerged within the city council campaign was not of secondary importance as some have stated. While this approach did not in and of itself have a decisive effect in determining the outcome of the struggle, it did seriously weaken the movement at a crucial time. The people and groups who played a conservative role at that time were not inexperienced, in fact they were socialists and members of the revolutionary left, and included the Socialist Workers Party generally and Dermot Connolly and Joan Collins, both ex-members of the Socialist Party.

The differences of approach that emerged relate directly to what is the best way to build campaigns and conduct struggles. They also relate to the role that socialists should play in the rebuilding of the working class movement, which everybody agrees will be a vital issue in the years ahead. The issues re-surfaced again in the build up to the local elections in June 2004 and have continued on the bin tax and around the debates on how and when to establish a new left party for working class people. The differences are current and very relevant and undoubtedly will come up again and therefore need to be clarified. Without a correction, perhaps the next time such wrong policies and methods could make the difference between an important victory or defeat for working class people.

The next years will see a growing desire on behalf of workers and youth to fight against the conditions of capitalism and the system itself. The willingness to struggle and the sacrifices that many showed in the bin tax battle were an inspiration. The overwhelming support amongst working class people in Dublin for the struggle and the militant tactics of the campaign makes us extremely optimistic about the future. The Socialist Party has produced this document in order to record the main developments in this battle; to show the role played by the different groups and people, particularly in the city campaign and because we believe serious discussion on these issues will be very informative for socialists and activists in their work in the years ahead. In our view the political positions and actions of some in the bin tax battle indicate the development of political opportunism and electoralism within the revolutionary left. In the struggle to re-build a mass working class movement, it is very important that the movement is rebuilt on a proper and principled basis and avoids, as much as possible, wrong ideas and methods of struggle.

In dealing with these issues we will concentrate on the position of our party in contrast to those of the Socialist Workers Party, Dermot Connolly and Joan Collins, now a councillor in the Dublin City Council area. We will refer to and quote from material that they have produced at various points over the last two years. Dermot Connolly and Joan Collins were both members of the Socialist Party for considerable periods of time but parted company with the party because of the fundamentally different positions they and the party took in the bin tax battle. Dermot, who was formerly secretary of the Socialist Party in the south, published an extensive article last year entitled "The Socialist Party, Joan Collins and the Bin Tax Battle" and is available in the archive section of Indymedia Ireland.

Much material has been written since on the bin tax and the building of a new left movement but we would particularly suggest that the above article is read in conjunction with this document.

As mentioned there were four different anti bin tax campaigns covering the four council areas of the greater Dublin area. In Fingal and South County Dublin, the Socialist Party, along with local activists, played a key role in building and developing the campaigns. In Dun Laoghaire/Rathdown, the campaign was in effect organised in the Rathdown side by the Socialist Party and local activists, and in the Dun Laoghaire area the SWP assumed responsibility. In the Dublin City Council area the campaign was made up of a number of political groups, including the Socialist Party, political activists and local activists. Over time, the SWP in particular sought to claim responsibility for organising a number of local areas in the city.

<-Next->