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December 2011 – Disability Benefit
http://www.irishtimes.com/blogs/gallery/files/2012/12/disability630.jpgWithin two days of the announcement of cuts in disability benefits a year ago, the Government performed a U-turn on one of them. Minister for Social Protection Joan Burton announced proposals to stop disability payments to new claimants between 16 and 18 years old. After protests by parents Taoiseach Enda Kenny announced in the Dail the proposals to increase the age of entitlement for new claimants from 16 to 18 would be “paused”. The Minister herself said: “I’ve listened particularly to parents of severely disabled children who have said they fear that children who are 14 and 15 years of age could lose out when this reform comes into place.” Minister for Finance Michael Noonan, on RTE’s annual show on the day after the budget, told Pat Kenny the cuts were "sanctioned" by Ms Burton, who had to shave €475 million from her department’s budget. She had imposed the cuts "with the absolute best of intentions … but we will revisit it”. Photograph: Getty Images/iStockphoto
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December 2011 – Deis resource teacher cuts
http://www.irishtimes.com/blogs/gallery/files/2012/12/deis630.jpgA concerned parent addresses a meeting including local TDs at Our Lady Immaculate Junior School, Darndale, Dublin, on concerns over planned cuts to Deis schools. It took a little longer for the U-turn in this case to come about, but in an unusual move for any government minister of any era, Minister for Education Ruairí Quinn admitted in January of this year that the announcement of cuts in resources for schools in disadvantaged areas was a mistake. "It's not the best way to do it, quite frankly," he said. "We make mistakes, we get things wrong, all of us. And I think the first thing to do is to put your hand up and say: 'Yes, perhaps let's look at that again'. That is what we're doing." Some 428 teaching posts were to be cut under measures announced in the December 2011 budget. Deis (Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools) offers funding for support services in disadvantaged schools including resource teachers. A sustained campaign by schools across the State resulted in a U-turn on the issue but the Minister insisted any reversal of the cuts would have an impact on other areas of education. He subsequently cut allocations for guidance counselling in schools. Photograph: Alan Betson/The Irish Times
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December 2010 – Children’s allowance cut for third child
http://www.irishtimes.com/blogs/gallery/files/2012/12/childrenallow630.jpgMinister for finance Brian Lenihan, since deceased, announces child benefit is to be cut by €10 a month for the first and second child, and by €20 for a third child, which would have had quite an impact on a family such as that at left. Then Fine Gael finance spokesman Michael Noonan in his speech on budget day questioned why the bigger cut applied only to the third child. “Minister, what have you got against third children? The fourth child won’t be cut, the fifth child won’t be cut, the 16th child won’t be cut…did some third child beat you up coming home from school as a young fella?” he asked. But in his first budget as Minister for Finance last December, Mr Noonan also cut child benefit for the third child. He, however, appeared to have something against fourth and subsequent children as well, for they too took a cut. The rate for the first two children remained the same at €140 a month, while the third child rate was reduced by €19 from €167 and will be reduced a further €10 in January 2013. The rate for fourth and subsequent children was reduced in Mr Noonan’s first budget from €177 to €160 in January 2012 and will be cut a further €20 in January 2013. Photograph: Alan Betson/The Irish Times
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Emergency budget October 2008 – Over-70s medical card cut
http://www.irishtimes.com/blogs/gallery/files/2012/12/pensioners630.gifAngry pensioners protesting outside Leinster House in Dublin on October 22nd, 2008, over the then government's botched budget plan to abolish medical cards for the over-70s. Plans to end the automatic entitlement to the medical card for the over 70s ran into a storm of controversy that year, provoking a protest by some 15,000 pensioners and an agitated session in Westland Row church in Dublin when ministers were booed off the platform. Legislation to end the automatic entitlement to the card from January 2009 was introduced but card holders were told they could hold them until March. An expected 20,000 pensioners were to lose the card from January 2009 and 140,000 of the then 210,000 pensioners with medical cards were to be means-tested. In 2008 medical card costs for the over-70s were €200 million, of which €86 million was attributed to GPs’ fees. The government later increased the income thresholds pensioners could have and did not take the card from any of the existing cardholders, but asked them to voluntarily give them up if they exceeded the income threshold. Latest available figures show 30,000 people over 70 handed back their medical cards. Photograph: Julien Behal/PA Wire
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Emergency budget 2008 – €200 car parking space levy
http://www.irishtimes.com/blogs/gallery/files/2012/12/carpark630.jpgA Green Party initiative that made it into the Finance Bill in the 2008 budget but “withered on the vine”, this proposal aimed to put a “benefit-in-kind” tax of €200 on car parking spaces provided by employers, whether private or public sector. Targeted to raise €10 million, it proved controversial and unworkable. Green Party transport spokesman Ciaran Cuffe said it was one of a range of measures to promote alternative modes of transport, as commuting patterns were “not sustainable”. Conor Faughnan of the AA described it as one of those “what on Earth were we thinking” proposals that was far more trouble than it was worth. It died on the drawing board. Photograph: Frank Miller/The Irish Times
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December 2003 – Decentralisation
http://www.irishtimes.com/blogs/gallery/files/2012/12/decentral630.jpgThe new headquarters of the Office of Public Works in Trim was officially opened in 2010 as part of the decentralisation plan. The building cost in excess of €32 million to construct. In one of the most controversial budget measures of recent decades, then minister for finance Charlie McCreevy had announced a proposal to move eight government departments and their cabinet ministers to 50 towns around the State. Conceived as a political “stroke" with no target date and a budget of €20 million, it appeared to have been intended to appease Fianna Fáil backbenchers openly and critically opposed to health reforms. Opposition parties conceded it as a “rabbit pulled out of the hat”, but as an organisational and structural reform it proved disastrous and costly. By 2008, more than 2,500 public service positions had moved out of the capital, but the government spent €230 million on the measure. Some €220 million of it went on properties. A number of the properties remain empty or underused, at an ongoing cost to the exchequer. Photograph: Alan Betson/The Irish Times
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November 2003 – 'Savage 16' Cuts
http://www.irishtimes.com/blogs/gallery/files/2012/12/coughlan630.jpgMary Coughlan, then minister for Social and Family Affairs, at the child care centre at St Andrews Resource Centre, Pearse Street, Dublin, at about the time she announced cuts that became infamous as the “savage 16” in the pre-budget estimates a month before the budget. They provoked a public outcry, and then Labour spokeswoman Kathleen Lynch said the cuts made "Margaret Thatcher look like a socialist" compared to Ms Coughlan. By budget day the former minister was only saying she had “not signed off” on a number of them and “hadn’t closed the door completely” on a re-evaluation, and cuts were stretched out to the end of the following year. The changes were part of a €58.5 million economy drive and included the abolition of half-payments of unemployment or disability benefits to working widows and widowers in addition to their widows’ pension entitlements, a move that was to affect 2,000 people and save €6 million. They also included reductions in lone parent, rent, back-to-education and child dependent allowances. Concessions were subsequently made. Photograph: Cyril Byrne/The Irish Times
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December 2001 – Individualisation
http://www.irishtimes.com/blogs/gallery/files/2012/12/couple630.gifIn another of his more controversial budget measures, Charlie McCreevy changed the tax laws to benefit working couples, rather than those with one spouse in the home. The minister wanted to fully individualise the standard rate tax band. There was significant protest and lobbying by single-income couples, and concessions were made to mollify them. Then Fine Gael finance spokesman Michael Noonan said tax measures should reflect “the real cost” of a second spouse going into the workforce. However, while controversial for single-income couples, the measure was seen as a gender equality move by the minister. Along with individualisation, he significantly increased Child Benefit. Mr McCreevy continued with the provision, although he did not manage to finish it in a planned three-year changeover - and the end result was a more complicated tax system. Photograph: Myriam Babin/Photodisc/Getty Images
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December 1994 - Seaside Resort Scheme
http://www.irishtimes.com/blogs/gallery/files/2012/12/seaside630.jpgA tax relief scheme to renew and improve “certain resort areas” - 15 of them - was introduced with effect from mid-1995 for an initial three years. A loophole in the scheme whereby developers were manipulating reliefs and claiming double reliefs on investment schemes in holiday cottages was closed in the budget the following year. The scheme was intended to boost resorts but a subsequent government report found it ended up damaging the local landscape in many of the areas. Controversial from the start, it resulted in claims of “holiday cottages explosion” in a number of towns, and the ongoing criticism included allegations of interference with local development plans, lack of consultation of the local population and increasing the price of properties beyond the range of the local population. By December 1999 when it was closed down there was an estimated IR£200 million in tax foregone and fears were being expressed that many of the developments would become the “eyesores of the future”. Photograph: Dara Mac Donaill/The Irish Times
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January 1982 - tax on children’s shoes
http://www.irishtimes.com/blogs/gallery/files/2012/12/shoes630.gifThe then government abandoned its plans to cut taxes because of the economic situation, but tax proposals by then minister for finance John Bruton to levy Vat on a number of items including children’s shoes lost the support of two Independent TDs, Jim Kemmy and Sean “Dublin Bay Rockall” Loftus, collapsing the government and forcing another general election, in which Fine Gael lost power. It emerged after the emergency budget in October 2008 that officials had advised then minister for finance Brian Lenihan that putting the 21 per cent Vat rate on a number of zero-rated items including children’s shoes and clothes, oral medicines and books would raise about £1 billion. The minister decided against the measures. Photograph: Cyril Byrne/The Irish Times
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December 1924 – Old Age Pension cut
http://www.irishtimes.com/blogs/gallery/files/2012/12/blythe630.jpgIt is perhaps the most infamous cut of all - and almost 90 years later is still remembered - the only budget cut still recalled so long afterwards. In 1924, then Cumann na nGaedhael minister for finance Ernest Blythe cut a shilling off the pension from 10 shillings (nowadays 63c, without considering inflation) to 9 shillings (49c). Hugely controversial at the time, it became a dark joke and is often quoted at any time there is change, or talk of it, to the State pension. The cut was imposed at a time of stark economics when Blythe had a projected budget of just over £8 million and a national debt of £6 million. The photograph, from October 1922, shows the president of the executive council William T Cosgrave (centre), with his cabinet, including Ernest Blythe immediately to his left. Photograph: Getty Images
