A chara, – Announcing the budget over two days is a tacky gimmick. The real “unexpected break with tradition” (“Ministers will unveil plans for budget over two days”, November 26th) was the first announcement of the Irish budget in a foreign parliament. – Is mise,
Sir, – Stephen Collins is right (Opinion, November 26th) that the budget has to deal with what the headline refers to as “harsh financial realities”. Putting aside the wrongness of Ireland’s banking debts now being sovereign debt (after that famous night in September 2008) there is still the problem that we are living beyond our means.
The middle classes (squeezed a bit) must accept that State spending on subsidies to them have to be reduced. Yes reducing benefits to those earning over, say, €40,000 can be difficult and counterproductive – for example, how do you tax single mother’s child benefit? But the onus has to be on those who can afford to pay having to pay. It is only fair that increasing student fees are on the budget table when the top 20 per cent of earners benefit far more from low fees than the bottom 20 per cent who are far less likely to have children in college. Should the office cleaner subsidise the education of the boss’s children? The Government must focus on protecting the weak, vulnerable and poor and that must be at the expense of those of us who are middle class. – Yours, etc,
Sir, – A few months ago I was proud to be one of those who helped topple the ancien regimebut today I am devastated to know that I have probably made things worse.
How can a Government that offered so much have descended so low as to be unelectable? Despite pre-election pledges the poor are again going to bear the brunt of cutbacks. Let us look at some examples.
While we were promised that there would no attack on basic social welfare payments, we know that those reliant on these payments are going to be hit on four fronts: 1. A drop of €8 in weekly income.
2. A €50 charge for a medical card (ie another euro off their weekly income) 3. A €100 household tax (ie a further €2 off those who have the misfortune to have the audacity to own their own homes and not claim rental allowance (those in employment and living in council accommodation will be exempt). 4. Any increase in VAT clearly has a disproportionate effect on the poor.
It is nothing short of immoral for this administration to again exclude the wealthy (and let us not forget that includes themselves) from the pain.
Does anyone out there remember Ian Whitcombe's 1960s hit version of the old English song Poor But Honest? It contains the immortal line (and I may be paraphrasing here) "The rich get all the pleasure and the poor get all the blame". Plus ça change! – Yours, etc,