“Silence doesn’t truly mean that a person quits, it simply means that one doesn’t want to argue with people who just don’t want to or are incapable of understanding”.
Yesterday evening, unlike Tipperary Council, Cork City Council again voted not to vary the basic rate of Local Property Tax (LPT), following a special meeting.
Sixteen of the twenty six County Councillors assembled, who clench voter authority to alter the basic rate of LPT for their administrative area, (by minus or plus 15% of the basic rate set by the Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government), voted not to alter their current basic rate.
Photographed against the sunshine this morning; (note the surface tyre tracks) just a small section of the road surface on the junction of Slievenamon Road and Clongour Road, Thurles, obviously deemed acceptable by Tipperary Co, Council management and public representatives in their consideration of the tax fleeced motorists, pedestrians and cyclists of Thurles, Co. Tipperary. Photo: G. Willoughby.
Back in 2015 and 2016 Cork City Councillors had also agreed to apply a 10% reduction, but in 2017 a similar decision to yesterdays was also concluded, leaving €777,000 available in the council’s budget, for the fiscal year 2018.
Here in Thurles, for almost two years, promises to resurface the seriously deteriorated Slievenamon Road area of the town; together with stretches of its pavement, continue to fall on deaf ears; with County Councillors elected to the Templemore / Thurles Municipal District displaying little or no ability to stimulate those responsible to undertake this work.
This is the same pre-election, non required and never used ‘Cycle Way / Route’ promoted and introduced in 2015, by the former Tipperary Labour government Minister, Mr Alan Kelly. Today we seriously challenge any cyclist to attempt to cross from Slievenamon Road to the Clongour Road, in its present horrendous condition.
The government fork out millions of tax payers money on promoting, annually, Road Health and Safety issues, but when it comes to rural road surfacing; the grossly over taxed motorist in Tipperary, (through tax on Fuel, NCT costs, Road Tax, Vat, Motorway Tolls etc) is forced to drive on rugged terrain more akin to the physical confines of a river flood plane.
One is reminded of a past quote from Martin Luther King, Jr., which I relate to our Tipperary elected public representatives. The quote reads; “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”
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