Yup! Absurd. What I can’t understand is this property tax on top of everything. I mean how do you tax something that makes no money? Tis gonna cripple people, but for some reason no one stands up and says no more, that I really don’t get.

Me neither Aidan. Baffles me.

I agree with everything you said Aidan, except people have stood up against it through various marches and protests.

Unfortunately they are ignored and don’t work. So now they will be considered criminals.

Which is bullshit.
Adebayo

Aidan I suspect it will be the last straw..
Not to mention water charges also in the pile line..
And the highest paid politicians in Europe..
“ANIMAL FARM”comes to mind

You’re right, lets just keep borrowing! No need for fiscal responsibility or to live within our means now we’re technically “at risk”. Lazy socialists are the only ones moaning.

If there’s no work, create your own. I live by that socialist motto “He who does not work, neither shall he eat.”

So you think taxing things that don’t create wealth is a good idea? Air is next on your agenda is it?

Could not have put it better Jimmy,
Is there any other country where child card is more expensive than a mortgage?

Absolutely correct, Ben.
I couldnt be more digusted with this government, speaking as somebody who voted for them

Yup, the cost of petrol, food/toiletries, utility bills, dr & medicine, car tax/insurance, dental care, heating fuel, estate fee’s, clothes & shoes, (which apparently are deemed a luxury now), mortgage, rent, child care, school fee’s, god forbid your child done any after school activities, house maintenance, car service/nct…..Oh I could go on, I know I’ve forgotten half of it. Not one bit surprised by this.

And the rest Karolyn…country is a cesspit. Riots and heavy protests and major strikes are the only way to stop it getting worse. Irish are to weak a people though…they will just drink there way through it.

The “unable to pay bills on time” one is misleading too. The actual criterion is:

“… have living conditions constrained by a lack of resources and experience at least 4 out of the 9 following deprivation items: cannot afford 1) to pay rent/mortgage or utility bills on time, 2) to keep home adequately warm, 3) to face unexpected expenses, 4) to eat meat, fish or a protein equivalent every second day, 5) a one week holiday away from home, 6) a car, 7) a washing machine, 8) a colour TV, or 9) a telephone (including mobile phone)”

Not quite the same, is it?

Don’t get me started on the difference between poverty and inequality.

It was the the best thing that ever happened but like everything else in Ireland, it was very badly managed by a bunch of idiots. It compares to a situation where a person wins millions on the lotto and ends up flat broke after just a few years without even realising it until its too late. He then turns to his ‘friends’ for help but finds that those friends are no longer around.
Everybody wanted to ride in the Limo with us but nobody wants to join us for the bus ride now that Limo broke down.

Hobbs understated it. By some estimates it was the biggest transfer of wealth from one generation to another in any state in history.

But only some of that generation saw the benefit.

Marc its called the coast of living. We pay the most for food clothing and bills than any other country. Thats where the money is going. I get 186 euro a week to pay a mortgage bills and food. Its a horrendous ordeal trying to do it. I don’t have luxuries and I have removed meat from my diet because I cannot afford it. I buy the cheapest food to survive and i am only one. There are thousands in the same boat and I am lucky because I do not have children to feed. Spare a thought for those of us genuinely struggling on welfare not living it up according to the media stereotype myth.

100% agree with you, and know exactly how hard it is to be in the situation you are in, I see it all over my parents faces everyday. To people here as I have said before it just words but to people like Christopher and my parents it feelings of despair, anxiety, stress, fear and constant battle every week to try and figure out how you can survive, eat, keep warm, etc. it is the exact same for low paid workers be they public or private, poverty is poverty. It has to stop. No more will I say money can’t buy you happiness, it is with little money equals little happiness. My parents are not getting any younger with the rate of growth if that’s what you want to call it how many more years will their lives be left in limbo, and how many more cuts/ taxes are they going to have to face.

Well said – supplementary welfare of €95 to feed 2 kids at the moment . That works out at €4 per child per day . That’s not including so much as switching on a light switch or washing some clothes .

Christopher while I don’t doubt you and many others are struggling I am posting and commenting from the perspective of a recent returnee from London…..much more expensive than here…. Where people get 58 pounds a week to live on if not working and while I have witnessed grinding poverty in both places I feel that our social and family system here while not being perfect offers a bit more of a softening effect than many of the other parts of Europe from this report

And btw to all you lovely red thumb people I have also had to survive on 188 pet week after I lost my job and I an now trying to set up my own business…believe me its easier to do here than other places….

http://www.xpatulator.com/cost-of-living-article/Cost-of-Living-Europe-October-2012_388.cfm

I have friends living in England and all I hear them talk about is how cheap everything is there. Maybe your friend was in an expensive part of London. Cost of living is higher here.
You were on 188 a week and you managed, I don’t know your circumstances so I can’t comment,
But what, am I lying,that my parents are struggling like this Christopher and I’m sure many other people who are in the same situation.don’t insult them by claiming they have it soft or it is a softening. It’s not easy, it has gotten so bad that my parents are just waiting to let my siblings finish school and they are going uprooting their lives and moving. That decision wasn’t made out of choice it was a forced necessity to have any quality of life.

http://www.globalpropertyguide.com/Europe/ireland/currency-value

Not denying what you say Julie and I am not saying that people are not suffering what I am questioning is the accuracy of this report…can’t speak for your friends in England but 18 years if living theregives me some experience and a right to comment….Ireland is not the most expensive place to live in Europe not does it have the highest costs…see my link above…a big problem here is personal debt levels but this is also a huge problem in the UK….

Me bean “running” the country more like..

What about the accuracy of the report are you questioning?

Maybe my friends are wrong maybe like here it is different for families. Do you have statistics on the poverty in England, I have a feeling there is a lot more people facing poverty there.

It’s should be a law that no one should be allowed live in poverty, not that they should be going on holidays or out for meals or anything like that, just the basic that they have enough, food water,heat ,light and shelter. Or is that already in the constitution in some way? That’s all people want. Just to be able to pay the bills and feed their kids.

Can we now stop the divide between public and private, employed and unemployed, and concentrate on sorting out this mess, so that your business will succeed and my parents and Christopher have an opportunity to get work.

Fair play Anthony..
Need more like you .

Admirable wish list Julie…unfortunately under our present..ahem…..government and their puppet masters at the imf and in Berlin I think that there’s more chance of pigs flying

As regards poverty in the UK….18 years of teaching students from deprived background s has given me a unique and hard perspective as to the depth and breath of poverty in the English cities I have lived and worked in

Isn’t it crazy that, just the basic human rights of food,heat, shelter and light, is not achievable for all citizens in Ireland or all citizens full stop is as likely as pigs flying considering their a vast amount of wealth in the world.

Our government don’t get me started on that, I know people can say they went in facing a big mess but they have only managed to make the mess bigger.

The world debt is above 600 trillion, digital money, create by us in the form of debt. It on a screen.

I think the people in England have been pushed enough. I know amount of people in poverty there is a lot more than here, my point is in the 21% century no one should be in poverty.

I just don’t like the world I live in anymore since the recession I have been doing a lot of research it is a lovely world being destroyed by a system that has been corrupted and is not working.

http://youtu.be/empx5mlcU4o

Yo Chris. You do not get €186 a week to pay mortgage bills. Pisses me off when I hear people using welfare payments to pay their debts. Its for living costs only.

So what do you recommend he does, stop paying his bills, live in a dark house with no heating waiting for the bank to come evict him from his home.
Have you any morals. Why should he have to do that, he didn’t cause this, it was government and banks did and media coverup, and government and banks are getting away scot free. Being bailed out by people like Chris.

You get your dole money and you do the following.

Pay for food.
Pay elec/gas bills.
Pay phone/broadband bills.
Pay other basics.
Pay rent/mortgage. If you can’t afford mortgage then you should let the bank repossess and move into appropiate social housing either through rent allowance or other schemes.

That’s one weird argument,so give up your home that you have in some cases lived in for years.social housing, weeks if not months of a wait, so rent you still have all the same bills and now rent instead if a mortgage ,might give him some relief buy he has lost his home. As I said before he didn’t cause this, the banks did with an influx of cheap credit. Ignoring warnings. Inflation went through the roof so Chris prob paying a mortgage 3 times the value of his house.

Maybe rather then saying Chris should give up his home maybe seen as it is us the people who have bailed the banks out of all their gambling losses, the banks should now offer some relief to people like Chris.

But no you keep going after your fellow citizens who did noting to impact your life instead of the financial terrorists who put us all in this situation.

He can keep paying his mortgage but he has zero right to moan about welfare rates as they are far too high as it is.

Explain to me how they are far too high, when people are living in poverty on welfare. How much would you like to reduce them buy if they are FAR too high. Reducing social welfare, will lead to unimaginable suffering and hardship for 100s of people who have played no part in causing this. How do you expect Chris to pay property tax an water charges and all the rest to come. You have no morals if you agree to inflict poverty on your fellow citizen.
Just like I don’t agree with them taxing people to oblivion on the average industrial wage or frontline workers in lower. There is a section of society protected under these governments and its time that stopped

In 2004 when we could actually afford it basic welfare rates were €134 per week. Were you protesting at these level of welfare payments back then? Of course not. Yet these people must have been going through “unimaginable suffering” way beyond what the current welfare junkies are experiencing by your logic.

The only sections of society that have been protected are the over 65s and social welfare lifers.

These people have themselves the blame. They took on the mortgages pricing decent people out of house. They took the pay rises and loans which fed the bubble. They didn’t save for a rainy day. The voted time and time again to continue the madness. They can go to hell.

Welfare junkies, have you missed the recession and the massive job losses, the people you talk about who were on welfare in 2004 were not forced into it. They have every opportunity to get a job if they couldn’t make ends meet so what would i be protesting about when all they had to do if they were living in poverty is get a job.People like Chris and my family don’t have that luxury.

Only people being protected are over 65s and welfare. What about the bankers and property developers and the politicians that caused this mess most of who should be locked up.

Your argument makes no sense. THe experts and the people paid to look after out economy kept telling us that this boom would never collapse, how do you expect the ordinary citizen to know. We believe them. They lied.

Interesting priorities……phone/broadband ahead of housing costs and other baics?

Thejournal really seems to attract a dim breed of commentator. Always ranting about the injustices around bankers and developers. I never heard any of you ranting years ago against these creeps. You were all too busy queuing at 4am to buy some kip off plan

Now Ben…..Benny boy.
I’m guessing that you’d put phone/broadband costs way down the list below mortgage repayments, drink and sky tv?
The ability to communicate and to inform should be a top priority for everyone. That is why you are sitting on the dole.If you’re sitting at home with no internet connection then good luck, go back to the 20th century. I feel sorry for the kids of these parents.

Is it our fault that the banks were giving out cheap credit or that the experts kept telling people that this construction boom would continue. They fooled us. If you can’t see the injustices done by the banks and the property developers than you are the dim commentator.

The fact that you have to resort to personal insults, says enough about you.

I have an opinion you have one.

You seem to agree with Edna’s comment that the Irish went mad. They bought into a fake boom like everyone else did. Doesn’t mean they deserve to live in poverty and have no quality of life.

“They bought into a fake boom like everyone else did. Doesn’t mean they deserve to live in poverty and have no quality of life.”
Yes it does. There is that Irish entitlement again. You think you are somehow entitled to a comfortable life? Why? Why should you have this above someone else in the world. Because you are white? Because you are Irish? Do you think people living in favelas and off rubbish dumps have the same entitlement?

We have to live with our collective decisions. Try and be a better citizen the next time. Be more responsible in your finanical decisions and who you give your vote.

Sense of entitlement, really, the basic human rights, food, shelter, heat, light.

So because people like everyone else, bought into the boom, and were unlucky enough to lose their jobs during the collapse of the boom they deserve to live in poverty.

Yes i think no one should be living in poverty in the 21st century( read my comment above replying to Marc) I think every person is entitled to, food, water, medicine, shelter the basic necessities of some standard of a life.
Do you not ?

I never made bad decisions I went to college and got a degree, didn’t get into debt. My parents built a modest house 12 years ago, never even had a credit card, are not in negative equity, own one property our family home, why do they deserve to be in poverty. Also I never voted FF/FG but it doesn’t matter who people voted for back then they lied and we believed them.

How are the bankers and politicians and property developers suffering for there collective decisions, there not, we bailed them out. That’s justice and equality in your eyes is it?

Everybody in Ireland already has access to the basics. Some make personal decisions to forgo some of these basic necessities.

Not to disagree with your main point, Julie, but when did washing machines, colour televisions and annual holidays become “basic human rights”?

I in 4 children go to bed hungry, people can’t afford to eat. People are unable to afford oil to heat there houses, many people will be unable to pay water charges, like my family. The amount of people homeless has gone up. Look up poverty in Ireland. See what actually is going on.

Emily

Colour television and washing machines, people had before they were forced into poverty, I know in my own circumstance if either had to be replaced, then we would just have todo without, it would be impossible to come up with that money.

Annual holidays I don’t know anyone, low paid workers private or public or unemployed after being cut in the last 4 or so austerity budgets that can now afford to go on an annual holiday. If they can I would be considering that you report them because I would be 100% certain that they are not getting that kind of money from welfare. If they are that is fraud.

I don’t know what else to say lads but I just don’t believe that in the 21st century any child should be going hungry.272,000 of them in Ireland.

Economically, what is the outcome of the percentage of people in poverty increasing, well it means less people having the ability to spend in their local business and that leads to job losses.

It’s a dangerous road we are heading down. Even the experts in Eurostat say they don’t see austerity working.

That’s my opinion ye are entitled to have yer own opinions.

Children go to bed hungry not because their parents don’t have enough money to feed them. Irish people have more than enough money for food, clothing and heating. They just chose to spend their money on other items. Nobody is without a roof over their head if they want it. We have many levels of social housing.

You’re missing the point, Julie. Colour TVs, washing machines and annual holidays are part of Eurostat’s definition of “at risk of poverty or social exclusion”. It’s all there in the linked article. That might be a standard of living we would like everyone to have, but it’s a real stretch to define “poverty” this way.

If you’re saying that 1 in 4 children are going to bed hungry, then I’d say that the statistics don’t begin to support that. You do the people who are genuinely hard up a disservice by exaggerating.

Im doing myself a disservice because I am telling it like it is from my own experience.

Yes 1 in 4 are going to school hungry sorry, you can look it up if you wish. It was even reported on rte news shouldn’t be hard to find.

I in 4 are in mortgage distress. I am not exaggerating it, the facts are their. If you wish to ignore them that’s your choice.

People are in poverty now, imagine what it will be like after property taxes and water charges. People who are just coping are scared of what’s next.

The mule, pre budget 2012 272,000 children in poverty that’s about 600,000 parents who are deciding to let their children go hungry for other items, what are these other items? That’s just a total lie and shows the lack of your knowledge on the subject.

What is their household income? It’s not zero or anything close to it. As I said earlier, priority number one is to buy good quality nutritious food. Luckily food costs are a far smaller fraction of household budgets than 20-30 years ago.
But these parents are not doing that. They are paying debts off first which is madness.

Food is a smaller percentage of budget, prices have gone up for food, oil electricity and soon water. When that budget has been cut and cut by government, than that food bill becomes a bigger percentage of budget.

Okay my parents are trying to do both, keep my family fed and warm, but they also don’t want to lose the family home they built for us, it’s out home, we miss a payment you get told you will be brought to court, you get harassed with courts and next thing you know you have the bailiffs coming to evict you. So people are trying to juggle both and their finding it very hard.

No one wants to face this:
http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?sns=tw&v=FPKOa-5GPPg&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DFPKOa-5GPPg%26sns%3Dtw

Go back to being ignorant of the situation if it makes you feel better unfortunately 100s have to face this problem every day an can’t be ignorant.

And what happens if they don’t pay their debts to the bank, they loss their family home. People are trying to juggle both.
No one wants this;

http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?sns=tw&v=FPKOa-5GPPg&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DFPKOa-5GPPg%26sns%3Dtw

You don’t pay you get harassed, letter, court, eviction.

Remain ignorant if it makes you feel better.

Really says a lot when people quote the same statistic over and over again without providing a source, and ignore the contrary statistics in the source provided.

If your parents are others are forgoing food for their children over mortgage payments I would like to see those children taken into care as they are obviously not fit parents.
Poor me I have no family home. How do I survive? I rent. Its not that big a deal.

I didn’t think I needed to quote websites to me it is general knowledge from educating myself reading topics and watching news programmes.

Mule how dare you say my parents are not good parents, how is any parent who has worked all their lives paid taxes, wanted to buy a family home and because of circumstances at the time, inflation drove the price of them houses through the roof and banks were all too happy to give people mortgages, actually insist, that were totally out of line with their income,why did the banks do that, for their own gain. I don’t want to see my house repossessed by the banks. The banks aren’t exactly friendly when you just stop paying them.

Julie, I see the exact same thing in my parents faces, heartbreaking.

Yup, it is a really hard situation to be in. Really hope something changes for your family and mine. But I feel it is not over yet. Have a look at that link I put up above,he manage to get the eviction stopped. Would be worth looking into if you know anyone in that situation.

Julie i agree, my parents in law lost their home in 2010 and my mother was homeless and had to move into a mobile home which is hard to heat in the winter. I’ve seen good decent hard working people lose everything because of this recession while others have barely flinched. It’s the unfairness of everything that gets my goat. The failed bankers & developers get looked after while screw the little people and what’s worse I’m ashamed that we have let this happen and most of us have barely protested.

Join in with Ballyhea, a great group of like minded people or just follow on twitter and spread the word, about 10 other areas after joining in the last week.I am so sorry to hear about your mothers ordeal, I couldn’t even begin to imagine the heartbreak.

I was thinking that if people were to set up an email or Facebook page people could come on and tell their story. I think many feel isolated in their struggle. Maybe it would help and also highlight to people the extent of what is going on. Just a thought.

Why are people so ignorant of the suffering going on?

Really hope your family like mine , Chris and Derek get some sort of hope in the future at the moment it looks bleak.

Simply Julie, the reason why people are so ignorant about what is going on, is in your statement.!!

Because the extent of it is not being highlighted and all we get from media are statistics instead of the real stories of the human consequences of what has happened?