There is an atmosphere of fear and trepidation in the air following the news last week that we are to pay over €30bn to bail out Anglo Irish Bank and that is because it means one thing — an even worse budget than was already planned.
The country is on its knees, there is no doubt about it and there is no way that we are going to avoid paying the cost of the erratic, unregulated and uneducated decisions taken by those in authority in the past ( and are still in power in most cases!! )
What happens in the UK (if it is negative only of course ) will inevitably occur over the water in Ireland too and many families are extremely worried this week that the children’s allowance is going to be taken from families in the future.
For many women, this is all they have. For others, it pays for the children’s books, uniforms, school fees and other costs associated with returning to school. I know that people let it build up so that the return to school is not so difficult, as the costs incurred could simply not be taken out of an average weekly wage.
Maybe removing the children’s allowance from the rich is understandable, but how do you quantify ‘rich’? People have driven themselves so much into debt with the banks giving out car loans with mortgages willy nilly over the years, that even those with a half decent salary are only barely getting by on what they have, as most of it goes on the mortgage, car loans, personal loans etc.
Maybe taking children’s allowance from people in the UK might be justified as there, parents don’t need to pay for school books, school fees or other costly expenses that are incurred by Irish families — school really is free in the UK! Childcare is cheaper in the UK and the health system is a far cry from the archaic system that we have here.
Unfortunately, the cost of living in this country, although it has dropped a little in recent times, it is still prohibitive as we are all in so much debt.
The upcoming budget is going to hit hard and once again, nobody will be unaffected. The ordinary tax payer will continue to pay the price of the Celtic Tiger brought on by greedy developers and bad bankers.
The waste that is currently being counted up by the Public Accounts Committee is also a shocking indictment of how lax our regulators were during the boom times - it’s like people were just given a book of blank cheques.
Already, they have outlined a catalogue of waste of public money and serious breaches of corporate governance, financial oversight and procurement in the HSE.
The e-voting machines that have been held in storage for years and cost the taxpayer some 51million to mind are now to be disposed of! What a joke. The Taoiseach said that this ‘was a great disappointment’!
Indeed it is. We could have had a few more lifesaving operations carried out in closed theatres for that money. Susie Long could still be alive for that money.
Speaking of which next week is Susie Long Hospice Week 2010 and there are a host of activities taking place. Although everyone is smashed broke — it is in all of our best interests that there is a hospice for end of life care in Kilkenny. We never know when we might need it. So give what you can and support the cause.
