It was only a matter of time. Of course the Croke Park (Choke Park ) Agreement is going to be tampered with – along with social welfare, income tax, and child benefit — in the upcoming autumn budget, in which the Government has to make additional savings of €3.5 billion. No small change there.
Flying kites is the term used to describe what has been going on in preparing the ground for the upcoming budget cuts but, as far as the coalition is concerned, it is all about damage limitation. Fine Gael want to show up Labour; Labour want to show up Fine Gael and in the meantime, loose-tongued renegade TDs are sending mixed messages that only serve to highlight in-house cabinet splits and further anger those being targetted – namely public sector workers who were informed via the media that according to Minister Leo Varadkar, pay increments and allowances are not fixed in stone after all.
This utterance, as the week moved on, served to provide fodder for others wanting to push the same agenda and so it has begun, speaker after speaker is now advocating that not just public sector workers in general, but teachers, nurses and those on higher pay bands in or around €100,000 specifically, be first hit for cuts.
It is ironic and unfair that such messy-making should occur to coincide with the end of school term and the long-yearned for summer holidays by hard-working teachers who deserve every day off they get for the crucial job they do during our children’s formative years. Following on this week from some heart-warming yet tear-jerking rites of passage ceremonies as pupils finished small school/national school and secondary school to move to the next level, such mutterings are all the more unwelcome and untimely and out of kilter with current public sentiment.
By Thursday the talk had moved to attack social welfare payments in Ireland, with the EU Commission releasing a report condemning the high level of dole and handouts available to beneficiaries, on the basis that they are too accessible, too generous, and apparently never-ending. Such criticism is nothing we haven’t heard many times before; however, the fact that these truths are emanating from our ‘bosses’ in Europe makes them not only harder to stomach but also, much more hurtful. Given the unpopularity heaped on any government that dares to enact meaningful social welfare reform, expect as ever that come Budget 2013, the coalition will plumb for the easy target of income tax hikes to guzzle up more of our hard-earned cash. Had they the nerve instead to means-test Child Benefit such that parents like Ryanair multi-millionaire Michael O’Leary’s could justifiably refuse this ‘free money’, they might actually make some equitable savings for the public purse.
Living in the now is what life should be all about though and therefore, let us relish the month of July that begins this weekend, marking the official start of summer holiday season for many. Those of us lucky enough not to have to endure phantom flooding as occurred in Cork in recent days, should be thanking our lucky stars for life’s smallest of pleasures – from passable roads to wellbeing walks along newly developed greenways and lakesides in our home county.
For those affected by the Ulster Bank ‘technical glitch’ saga that continues into this weekend meanwhile, all we can offer is our sympathies – amid the growing realisation that it is machines – and not humans – that truly rule the world.
