Windfall taxes on land rezoning profits should be used to fund part of the cost of local authority services, the Irish Congress of Trade Unions will tell the Government this week.
ICTU leaders, who are increasingly concerned by the bin taxes controversy, are due to present their pre-Budget submission to the Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy.
The windfall taxes proposal will form a key element of the 30-page submission, which ICTU argues could help to do away with bin charges over time. "But it wouldn't happen on Thursday morning," cautioned one ICTU source.
More than 3,000 trade union members attended a Dublin rally on Saturday in support of the anti-bin tax campaign, following the release from jail earlier of Socialist Party TD Mr Joe Higgins and his colleague Cllr Clare Daly.
Both made clear that they would be prepared to serve a further prison term, although there are some signals that the conflict could be eased if Dublin local authorities suspend their decision not to collect from non-payers.
The independent anti-bin tax campaign group in each of the Dublin local authorities plans to meet this week to decide the next move.
Bin tax campaigner Cllr Ruth Coppinger told The Irish Times: "The non-collection policy should be suspended. This should be dealt with politically in the local elections."
Pointing to Saturday's demonstration by the Dublin City Trades' Union Council, she said: "We think that there is pressure coming from the rank-and-file and union shop stewards.
"The official policy of all of the unions is to be against service charges. There has not been enough of a response from unions to the fact that working-class people have been jailed," Ms Coppinger said.
Speaking during a rally to celebrate his release, Mr Higgins said hundreds of people throughout the State had written to himself and Cllr Daly in jail to support their action.
"I can say that we are more determined than ever. I speak for those who are in jail," he told the Socialist Party rally, which was attended by 400 people in the Gresham Hotel.
A number of other bin tax protesters, who were jailed last week by the High Court for blocking bin collections are expected to be released later this week from Mountjoy and Cloverhill.
