I wouldn’t call her a politician, she’s a senator i.e. a failed politician!

Has to be out more than 2 months before guards can impound it

Gerard your wrong . They can by law impound it at anytime after the tax expires . Mine was just over a month out and the car was impounded by what I believe was an over zealous member but hey the law was broken . The policy is two months and over but they can take it anytime !

@Niall

I think you will find I’m right Niall, a guard has no power to impound your car unless it’s out over 2 months. If your car was taken for tax alone then it shouldn’t have been. They can also impound your car at any time for no insurance or if your nct is out by even 1 day but the tax thing is most definitely 2 months

Yep – tax is 2 months – If yours was impounded it’s because the Garda you dealt with was wrong.

Section 41 of Road Traffic Act.

Well, I would imagine with everything that is going on in her life at the moment it would be easy to forget. Its hardly uncommon people not paying their tax either on purpose or just forgetting.

I’m sure she is smart enough to know if she was to dodge paying on purpose and got caught there would be up roar.

So true.

Kevin, or maybe she’s just arrogant enough to not give a toss?

Maybe, maybe, maybe.

I’ve forgotten my car ta a few times. I’m sure “I forgot” is the same reason many people would put it down to if asked by a Garda. Apparently though, because she’s a senator, she deserves to be instantly blackmarked as “arrogant”

Just so we are clear here, if you dont pay your car tax, you are gifted reminders and ‘final notices’ from the motor tax office.

So for all the edgits in here to claim that it was simply forgotten you are having a laugh.

You dont ‘forget’ to tax your car for months on end, its a conscious decision, a means to an end. The tax office reminds you of this through the post. Or are we going to say now that she forgot to read her post ?

How in gods name is she still a senator? She’s a total crook!

So much for standards in public office or do you have to be sub standard for public office . How can this serial law breaker hold down any job . oh yes she’s a senator , they dont do anything!

“raping” the tax payers ? perhaps the term could be quite rightly used for the likes of Bertie and his ilk, however i think it is a bit strong in the case of receiving a salary for being a senator, incompetent though she may be, under the current system she is entitled to be paid as a member of the Seanad.
Not trying to defend her in any way, just thought it was a poor choice of words. Of course we could argue the necessity of having to pay people to voice their opinions and fight for things they believe in.

I think its a perfictly acceptable word to describe her actions.. She isnt even an elected official. if you need to see the phrase “its not what you know, its who you know” put into practice, look no further than seanad eireann

sorry but I don’t agree that any of her actions, that I know of, are tantamount to rape. Either of the physical, emotional, psychological, or financial variety.
I just think it shows that she is either incapable of keeping her own house in order or is just a tight fisted b**ch.

Although her actions were silly I hardly think its a resigning matter,

If any matter is a resigning matter its Mick Wallce tax avoidance…yet we still see many fools supporting him and he’s not resigned.

What’s the story with people in this country continually operating a scale of morality?

“Well at least what X did is not as bad as what X did”

Wrong is wrong and that’s the end of it! We shouldn’t excuse away wrongdoings on the basis that someone else has done worse.

I agree. We’re getting nowhere with this relying on one-up-manship / one-down-manship.

If you want people to resign over such a non-story then you’d be looking for a lot more than her

some are elected at seanad elections and some are directly appointed.
Not sure about her but based on your quote from Enda I suspect its the former.

So nothing to see here.

Niall are you contributing just to see your name in print? The Taoiseach said she would be judged at the next Election…that doesn’t necessarily mean a General Election. Pause before you write…it works for some!

We here are the public and we are judging her. I wouldn’t give her my 500th transfer.

Just as he will be Niall , just as he will be……

The people of Galway have judged her in previous general elections even before these issues arose.

But doesn’t it just show the arrogance of the “select” few.

No big deal . Over 30% of drivers are late on a regular basis with car tax. Been there bought the t-shirt , got my car impounded and rightly so , paid the tax and back tax for the month . What’s the fuss . Ok she should lead by example , she didn’t and said sorry . Next story !!!

Next story? Who gave permission for building a ‘garage’ that clearly wasn’t a garage? Maybe somebody could look into this?

The people of Galway West have already not voted her in as TD in last general election.

Well there is the planning permission issue floating about, where a two-storey garage was “mistakenly” built (while she was on holiday) when she only had permission for a one-storey…

Excellent Chopper I look forward to the continuing saga.

For abolishing no. For reforming it definitely the best advertisement.

I agree, get rid of it, I don’t see any value in it for the state and while they are at it reduce the number of TDs as we have too many.

No, that’s judges you’re thinking of ;)

@vinny I need it to change ownership in order to tax the car!!!!! I can’t tax a car that’s not in my name!!

Someone should check her TV licence, tax returns and household charge, fiver (with one person) says they are not paid by her at the time of writing.

yes – someone not paying about 2 months of tax is a sure sign of just how deep the political corruption is in this country…

Back to the bar with you.

@Tomy so what you are implying is that it is OK not to pay taxes? I am merely highlighting yet another way where our public, er, self servants abuse their position. I’m just amazed how people can argue a case in their favour.

I’m amazed that you didn’t pick up what i actually meant.

The idea that not paying (whether intentionally or not) car tax for 2 months is any kind of gauge of political corruption is ludicrous.

I haven’t read a single post here about being in her favour – mostly just posts that counter complete overstatements or suggesting alternatives to ludicrous assumptions.

I doubt that there are many who support tax dodging of any kind but the reality here is more that this senator has stupidly drawn attention to herself again, not really the seriousness of the thing at all.

It’s amazing how principled we Irish get at times.

It is a form of corruption, sure very small but also an abuse of position. I’m actually not sure where you stand here, oking turning a blind eye to public servants doing wrong or just not really caring but happy to argue technical points.

Just not in favour of hanging people for what is pretty minor and something that half the country has done.

I hear you but just because others do it doesn’t mean we accept it. What p@@sed me off here in Ireland is the amount of people not paying their taxes, how ever large or small. Of course I understand why people don’t given the way out politicians waste these money for generally their own or their friends gain rather than for the country :-(

Fact – I hate when people call Ireland backward but in some ways we are. We are world leaders in complaining but rarely really do anything about it. We continue to vote in people based on the potholes they fix in our locality and ignore the glaring questions about their integrity.

In this case, as with any public representative, what should be the priority is to be beyond reproach in all your actions. She’s failed herself a lot here and invited criticism. I still think though that calls for resignation is going too far – She should be punished in the same way as anyone else should be.

Agreed!

We’ll sort out the whole Palestine/Israel thing tomorrow sure…..

Gagsy – I applaud your comment – this place is full of presumptuous hypocrites,

I’m not paying the household charge either and sod car tax too……

You don’t need logbook to tax car

I would argue the latter as she didn’t make the payment late, her car was impounded.

Afaik if you pay late, your still only renewing from the date you were supposed to pay. So if its due last Wednesday and you only paid today, tough. You wont get those extra three days when its up for renewal again. Unless you can prove to the Gardai it was off the road, then they will allow it back date.

There is no late payment fees. If your driving around with tax after a month or two, it can be impounded.

What she’ll end up paying is her impound fees and backdating of road tax to the time last taxed, excluding any full calender months that the car is signed off the road, if that applies.

If you’re paying back tax then you will pay more than you intended as x months back tax is more than x*1/12 of the year’s road tax. Then you pay for your future months too.

You can call it tax dodging all you want, in order to do so though you’d need to accept that this is not an unusual thing for people to do (that is, to leave it a month later and pay whether the intention is or is not to have the car signed off the road for the calender months within the untaxed time).

It also amazed me the attacks made on her about the other 2 bits of recent news.
Her plumber took her and the husband to court for what the plumber claimed was an unpaid bill. People said she was not paying her bills despite the fact that this was obviously more about a disagreement on the amount of the bill, for which they accepted the rule of law. Not only that but the 23K the plumber was looking for was not what the payout was – something less than 13K was. IMO this shows that there was simply a disagreement and it’s been resolved.
In the case of the rail ticket – the sense of this really needs to be laughed at. A senator (who will be claiming back the travel cost anyway) gets done because she doesn’t buy a ticket, people claim she’s a dope for showing her senator’s id and that this is a sign of how she was trying to avoid a fare (which will be claimed back anyway). How does it in any way benefit her to avoid paying for a ticket – it simply doesn’t. What’s truly idiotic really is that for those people in positions where they will be claiming back they have to go through the administrative BS of somebody actually wastefully having to process such claim backs. Why not a simple free travel card for public transport? I know there would be no limit on how much it would get used but surely this would be of benefit?

These stories, more than anything point a finger at someone for very little of any real substance and in reality has little to do with her ability to do the job (I have no idea about her performance as a senator btw).

Well I’m sure she must have paid the arrears otherwise she may have committed fraud

Fair enough………

Tomy.

You missing the point. She also summoned the CEO of CIE to Leinster House about the rail ticket. Who does she think she is. She thinks she is bigger than she is. And needs to be brought in by Enda. That would really frighten her. Ha

“Summoned” – when was that language EVER used in any news report?

Talk about creating a storm in a tea cup.

So many completely over the top statements being made here – as a senator her performance has been pretty uninspiring, I’d agree but people have lost all perspective about this woman.

The plumber thing even – accusing her of not paying her bills? Where are all the big mouths since this was settled? The judge awarded the plumber a bit more than half of what they were looking for! The whole thing was obviously a disagreement on the bill for the work and they went to court. Big deal! Instead the band wagon gets together to decide that she’s a thief!? Laughable. Comment sections on this site are absolutely full of short sighted fools who like to anonymously shoot their mouth off.

Dear right Nicky. The Great Reformer Enda. Don’t hold your breath

Like the rest of us!?!? Sorry, I tax my car & pay the tradesmen that carry out work on my house so they don’t have to take me to court to get satisfaction!! The train ticket issue is a grey area but wouldn’t surprise me if she had in fact thumbed her nose at the ticket inspector because of her position!!

I pay my taxes and I am in no way saying not paying car tax etc is something that anyone should do… all i’m saying is that she made a mistake. People forget to pay their car tax, renew their drivers license.. things like that all the time. Should there be a headline everytime someone forgets to pay their car tax then rectifies it when notified?

Whatever about the plumber scenario… i didn’t read the article. Just saying. People forget to do things. They get them done. Move on…

Well it’s the three issues together in such a short space of time, for an Irish Senator, that is the problem!! Not capital crimes by any means (although standing on the plumbers bill irked me a bit!!) but unacceptable for a person in her position!! The whole thing smacks of elitism!!

You didn’t read the article, but claim it is a non-story? Maybe if you read the article you’d realise why it is a story.

I said that i didn’t read the article about the plumber. That is a separate issue entirely.

I am saying the delay of payment of the car tax is a non-story…. That’s all that I said…

So you took what you needed from the article to make your poorly formed argument / comment & discarded the rest!?!

No. Not the case at all. The title of the article is “Senator Fidelma Healy Eames apologises for dodging car tax”.

That is what I commented on. Nothing else…

Seemingly the senator is having memory lapses… Maybe she should seek psychiatric help for the safety of the public in general!

Damian, this article is about the plumber too. The article talks about the plumber, the train ticket and the car tax. That is what makes it a story. The story is that a Senator keeps involving herself in embarassing (and possibly unethical) cock-ups.

Like I said, plumber issue aside… embarassing. Yes of course. Does it make her the worst politician ever to walk the face of the planet? In my opion, No. It shows that she makes mistakes just like anyone else. There are a lot bigger fish to fry in our political landscape. If politicians were not a major issue on our media radar due to recent years and what they got up to, would this story of the train ticket and car tax been deemed newsworthy? Probably not….

In both cases, the correct outcome happened in the end. Fine pad, tax paid… nobody got hurt.

I don’t think we need to burn her at the stake or anything over this. A little perspective wouldn’t hurt. That’s all!

I agree with you 100%.
I still think it’s worthy of a media report though. No harm to know what your public representatives are up to, and it’s up to the reader to decide whether Healy-Eames is making a series of mistakes or is a serial chancer.

On its own no.
But if you put it with the train fare dodging and her statement of her robust meeting in Leinster house with the CEO of the train company and her plumber taking her to court for non payment where a settlement was reached which involved her paying.

Sorry but there is a trend here.
All in 3 weeks.
She has destroyed her political career before its even started

Damian, with three stories like this in a short time don’t you wonder what else she is hiding?

It’s not about oversights. There’s a pattern of behavior, one that reminds us of some of the other characters in Irish public life. Apologising/paying up only after she is caught out is just not good enough.

maybe so… not saying she is some sort of saint… perhaps there is more to her? these minor items are not something to hang her out to dry on though….

At the time she said she hadn’t taxed it because she was selling it, that seems a deliberate action, not an act of forgetfulness.

Except she’s not a TD she’s only a senator as the people in her constituency never viewed her as suitable enough to represent them, so she got a cushy appointment to the senate.

What a waste