Sir, – After having had my fill of cutbacks announced and reasoning thereof, I took a walk locally late last Wednesday to recharge my brain.
What I encountered at Sandymount Green on this austere night was unbelievable. A crew of subcontractors to Dublin City Council was working through the night steam-cleaning the footpaths to remove possible deposits of chewing gum – Nero would have loved it! To those unfamiliar with the location of Sandymount Green, it is not among the oilfields of Saudi Arabia or beside the Casino in Monte Carlo. It is actually some 15 minutes walk from Dáil Éireann where Ministers Michael Noonan and Brendan Howlin spoke eloquently 10 hours previously on the fragility of our nation’s finances and monetary suffering necessary to ensure our survival.
Now I’m in my sixth decade and the necessity of employing a crew right through the night to steam-clean footpaths never struck me as an urgent priority for Dublin City Council’s meagre funds.
Such wanton waste of taxpayers’ money is hard to take after listening to the various financial woes and remedies the Ministers outlined in their budgetary speeches.
For a long time now it’s been evident there is a serious disconnect within various sections of both national and local government on appropriate use of public funding. My experience on Wednesday assured me that despite all the promises and reassurances of this Government on accountability that absolutely nothing has changed – the madness lives on! – Yours, etc,
Sir, – Given the outrageous misuse of the word “fair” when our politicians describe budgets, could I suggest that, in future, its misuse should be heavily taxed or indeed it should attract a criminal sanction? – Yours, etc,
Sir, – Amid all the jeremiads from press and media, how easy to forget that because of our profligacy and mismanagement we have lost our economic sovereignty and the Government has little choice in its targets. The so-called austerity budgets pale into insignificance when compared with the plight of the less fortunate developing world.
I recall some years ago in newly independent Zambia, which, through incompetence, had to seek aid from the IMF and World Bank. In return, the poor people living in mud huts had to fork up the cash for medicines and school fees They had barely enough to eat.
Contrast this depth of poverty and privation with our benefits and our well-fed population who are nowhere near the breadline.
Be careful what you wish for. If the country cannot bear the pain, the troika may impose yet stricter conditions in return for our much-hated bailout. – Yours, etc,
Sir, – In 2012, a person earning €350 per week was better off than someone earning €359 per week. In 2013 they will be better off than someone earning €365.
A single parent, with one dependent child, earning €350 per week is significantly better off than one earning €550 per week after one-parent family payment and family income supplement are considered, and a further €14 per week has been taken from the latter in the budget. If each single parent also had a child in university, the grants awarded would differ by €2,890, over €55 per week, in favour of the low-earner.
It appears that the most vulnerable in society are in fact those who just miss out on being classified as “most vulnerable”, and have no one to champion their cause.
While I am absolutely in favour of redistributive taxation, the idea that earning an extra euro causes a net loss of income is nonsensical. Even if it is only one cent per euro earned there should always be a benefit to being more productive. In the long term these cliff-like thresholds (and there are many others) trap low earners in a situation where their pay must almost double in order to improve their living standards, and they cannot afford to accept a small pay rise!
Surely it is time for a coherent root-and-branch overhaul of the revenue and social protection systems to smooth out these anomalies? – Yours, etc,
PAUL LAIRD,
Rutland Street,
Dublin 1.
A chara, – “Just €10 off your Children’s Allowance will help us pay the premature and bloated pensions of some failed politicians . . . Tomorrow: How your welfare cuts will make a better life for bondholders”.
The prescient copy of political cartoonist Martyn Turner published in the November 22nd, 2011 edition of your paper.
The Labour partners in this coalition Government have once again reneged on pre-election promises made in 2011 that they would not go after the children’s allowance in any budgetary cuts. Once again, the citizens with the least political clout: children, students, pensioners and those on the lowest incomes have been hardest hit by changes introduced in the government’s second budget.
It confirms what we all know about our society today. Money buys power and influence. – Is mise,
COLIN QUIGLEY,
Steeple Manor,
Trim, Co Meath.
Sir, – Now that we finally have a property tax, can we expect the removal of the taxes (which we are already paying), that have supported local government until now? – Yours, etc,
Sir, – If I hear once more the mantra “Every other country has introduced a property tax so it’s only right that Ireland does the same” I will not be responsible for my actions.
The point never made in the media is that the introduction of a property tax throughout other countries was not made against a backdrop of an already collapsed economy in the midst of an austerity programme. Neither were any of them in a bailout programme or committed to giving billions of euro of their taxpayers’ hard earned cash to unsecured bondholders.
There is a time and a place for everything when it comes to balancing a nation’s books. But asking hundreds of thousands of property owners to cough up hundreds of euros as a tax on properties whose values have been decimated, on which thousands on stamp duty has already been paid, while each successive budget sucks more spending power from their ever decreasing incomes, doesn’t strike me as the right time.
The Government might yet rue the imposition of this tax. – Yours, etc,