Exactly
The wealthy are now busy consolidating their wealth and waiting to screw the next generations, so give yourself a mortgage brake this christmas, take a holiday in the sun, buy a car, to hell with this of shower bank puppets, take your power back.

You have basically summed up the whole terrible situation and I agree. Life on the dole is just barely existing. I know there are many abuses in the system and depending on a persons circumstances some get more help then others. I have worked all my life over 30 years and i still can’t get a payment. I am getting supplementary of 186 a week while i waid for an appeal for a benefit I am entitled to based on my PRSI but they turned me down for it. I live in a community where many are unemployed who worked but there are many who never worked and what angers me most is they have had a choice of a house (regeneration gives them that choice). They have three or four welfare benefits they are “entitled” to and get. They don’t have to pay house insurance, property tax, tv Licence, or Housing maintenance (council does it). I got a small mortgage because as a single man the council will not house you and now i can no longer pay this mortgage being out of a job yet i get no assistance from anyone. I had to house myself and leave home. I am the one who is left abandoned after working all my life and contributing to this system. Why did i pay PRSI only to be refused a payment while kids as young as 16 living with their parents (not with serious disability but add adhd which is nothing compared to some kids serious disabilities) are getting full disability allowance of 188 euro a week with an annual Respite care grant of 1700 a year on top of free travel, household benefits package and other allowances? This system is insane. A person who worked gets less than a 16 year old minor who never worked living at home. I am not saying kids with disabilities should not get their allowances but the category of add adhd kids getting the same as those with serious disabilities is totally unfair and there are many abuses in the system because once they got to 18 they automatically “migrate” to the payment in their own right as an adult without ever having to go through the grilling and hastle that those newly applying have to. The system needs to be changed and those who worked should not have payments withheld as is the case.

Not one more red cent!!!!! Liar and complete con-man. Leo you are a complete embarrassment as a public representative. In a proper democracy, you would be locked up awaiting trial on treason charges.

everybody is pissed off about cuts, but the money to get this country out of this mess that fina fail got us into has to come from somewhere…

Well FartBox we paid €18 billion over to bondholders so far this year. I guess we could have used that….

that was agreed by the previous government, FINA FAIL… in November 2010 we got an 85 billion euro bailout from the ecb and imf…. wake up, we’re in this mess… WE OWE MONEY THAT MUST BE PAID BACK….

the previous government agreed to bail out the banks in April 2010, don’t forget that. it’s not a mess that’s going to go away over night…

FartBox
The problem isn’t what Fine Fail have agreed – and they are responsible for the mess, to be sure. The problem is the current shower of apes don’t have the first clue how to write their own budget, instead carry on the madness that was destroying the country.

The problem is people like you who insist on glorifying Fine Gael and Labor; and refuse to see how they’re compounding the issue. A real government would have stood up and pushed back on our behalf. Instead, they blindly apply whatever IMF and Merkel tell them to, without first assessing whether the economic pressure is capable of taking it. Instead of reducing their income – and keeping it there – they’re earning over 20% more than equivalent posts in other bigger EU countries (actually that was before they all took a nice raise). They’ve refused to tax the wealthy properly, to the point that we know that over THREE BILLION can be found just by equalizing the wealthy tax with the rest of EU.

Seriously, I mean for example property and water tax – maybe they couldn’t negotiate around these. But an intelligent government that actually is in touch with it’s public, can easily walk around that. For example, grant credits in return for paying those amounts; leave it up to individuals to apply for them. So they couldn’t work around the 2% increase in VAT? Ok, implement the high band of tax at 50k instead of in the low 30′s (France set this at 70k, with another band for earnings over 100k). Seriously, something is very f-d up when a person earning a little over minimum wage (a little more than someone on the dole after all is said and done) hits the same tax bracket as someone earning half a million euro. Right?

I mean come on, are you that naive to think that it’s all Fine Fail’s fault, while Fine Gael and Labor are the one’s in the driving seat, AND the one’s writing policy on budgets?? Are you that simple?

John we’re in this mess because of fina fail, corrupt bankers, a regulator that was asleep at the wheel and corrupt developers. the mess was inherited by the current government… if they doubled all of our taxes in the morning we’d still be on this mess… and yes, fina fail signed the deal with the imf and ecb so they are to blame. wake up we owe money, the best government in the world couldn’t get us out of the disaster they have created.

When Pre election promises, turned to lies, that’s when Peoples confidence turned to $hit.

adhd, previously known as “bold”. cured by adminstering a smack to the back of the hand!!

Nice comment on Mental Health Day Ciaran.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-11437079
Here’s a link to the genetic study. Perhaps we could “smack” the DNA out of them!

indeed seamus, a shot of positivity would do us the world of good. Take for example the nordic countrys they work together in order to achieve their goals. lets stop crying guys

Lads the sound of working together is good to hear but the tragedy is not everyone want to work together. This recession is hitting some people a lot more than others and as soon as you mention oh the wealthy are better off or the working class are struggling the heckles go up. It is all relative. Well paid people will tell you they pay more tax so they have taken a hit but their “hit” is only a minor glitch. They have resources that the unemployed and low paid never had or never will. Pick up any social commentary analysis book and they will spell out the privileges they are used to. But that cannot be compared to people on the breadline. I mean those who are struggling to put food on the table. I honestly believe that they think we are making all this up. That there are no people who have no food, or a holiday or be able to buy a cup of tea in a cafe because we are not visible. I don’t go into town because there is no point. I have no money and many are like me. We struggle at home. I worked in a place with very high earners ( I was getting about 400 a week ) and they had no concept of how working class poor people lived. I often told them at meeting about kids with no clothes eating tayto’s for a dinner and parents with no heating in their homes and they just looked at me in disbelief. They said where? I can’t see them. I told them take a drive up to where i live (which they declined). In short they were more comfortable in their fantasy land than they were acknowledging very poor people existed on their working door step. You are never going to get these people to work in solidarity with people who have lost the most in this recession. The working and middleclass low earners and unemployed. It won’t happen.

@Robbie,
Actually, if we do what the Nordic and Icelandic did – and they are flying at less than 5% unemployment, loans paid back, etc – then we would have to have massive protests and get much angrier. Somewhat like Spain are doing now.

I’m game if you are..

If he’s addicted to money then why didn’t he stay a GP?

When he gets his big pension he will still be able to return to being a gp David. Your arguments are getting weaker, just like your political party.

He couldnt be as devious and callous being a GP David

@David Higgins
Because, Mr Young Fine Gael’er, as a GP he can’t take random increases, untaxed expenses, and write his own pardon for crimes against the Irish nation.

@Angela. Im afraid there is no such thing as’good guy of politics’. They are in it to grab what they can and run. Crooks

wifi

Because he loves the sound of his own voice and loves being in front of a reporter. Also I think Kenny and Co like having him around as he deflects attention away from the fiasco that is the Enda Kenny lead coalition. OF COMPLETE JOKERS

I think the reality of it is that it will start at the bottom, happily work its way through the middle; only to stall out just before it gets to the top, as per usual in my opinion.

The bottom? How can you take blood from a stone?

Attic

Is that your first name or am I misunderstanding something. You seem to have extraordinary views about people who express contrary views to your own and your suggestions about my likely activities at home clearly indicate an underlying pathogenesis that is either undiagnosed or under treated . Experts will tell you of the lack of awareness among patients with these conditions but place your trust in them and if they suggest Electro Convulsive Therapy go for it!

There is no more money. Currently over a quarter of mortgages are in arrears, 1 in 5 mortgages are in arrears more than four months.

People – you know, average working stiffs – are unable to feed their families and keep the sheriff away from their door. Yet the wealthy are getting wealthier, with over 22 million euro earned in the top end of the economy only having paid under 2 million in tax (god go look it up, its referenced enough). The billion euro expenses are still uncut for ministers (only the garda got hit and that looks to be about to reverse). Enda and co are taking increases while our taxes grow ever larger.

Unless you’re in the wealthy boat, more taxes and cuts on the working incomes is NOT a good thing. Piling on taxes to the already strained will do nothing to steady the ship.

Paddy if we were all loaded like you we’d have nothing to winge about, and by the way. We are free to complain here that is what this commentary is about. Go back to your wasteful greedy selfish lifestyle. Why don’t you go away then and don’t read what we have to say. Pity anyone who has to live with the likes of you.

For the record Paddy, all things considered I’m doing quite well at the minute, and I count my blessings, but that doesn’t mean I turn the other way and let the country I love get run further into the ground. It’s called caring, you seem to be more of a ”pull up the ladder I’m alright” kind of guy, I hope it stay’s fine for you.

Paddy. You probably like reading the women’s section and the odd Valium yourself.your probably sitting at home now as we speak in your wife’s underwear,thinking of penning big Phil.

Shane are you living in the real world.

Shane please do not insult us with a comment like that. You have obviously never set foot in a disadvantaged housing estate. I agree there are loads out shopping and its like recession existed but here is the thing. This recession is not hitting everyone. Its only hurting the low paid and unemployed. Everyone else has plenty money for shopping because they are not getting targeted like those at the bottom are. Just check out some of the clothing labels of those in the shops. I bet they don’t wear pennys or dunnes labels. Its designer all the way.

Shane. Can’t you figure it out for yourself? Shopping centres are packed with people coming in, so as to avoid turning on heating in their own homes.

its a big mistake to assume I have never been to a socially deprived estate,

I am a single man, no kids and I rent. I’m being hit as hard as anyone else.

if someone can afford to drop their money on designer goods, they can afford to pay more towards getting our country out of this hole. my point was, there appears to be plenty of money out there but that is being ignored.

I have been on the dole, I know what its like to struggle but there are people out there not paying a fair share