Where are they/we supposed to find the €2.2B needed? Should they cut social welfare? Remove Child Benefit? How about abolish the OAP and social housing? Everything and everyone will be feeling the pinch this year – some more so than others, granted, but we can’t see any one thing as being ringfenced and more important than all others. I think it’s a shame that grants will be cut, but I’d rather that than seeing OAP’s without assistance and more people on hospital trollies.

@Catherine.

Third tax band. NO ONE IS AGAINST THIS ISSUE!

Good man Conor. They’ve broken all their other promises. Break a decent one and raise the money from taxing those on higher wages. Leave the lower paid alone!

Ditto here

And here

Me four

Dear Labour,
I didn’t give you my vote cos I knew you were a shower of liars unfortunately I couldn’t convince some of my fellow countrymen/women. Now they are moaning!
regards
Sean

FG cynically gave Labour very high spending Depts. They want to annihilate the left vote for next election. They know we won’t forgive FF and want Labour to feel the backlash. Please notice this.

And Reada, Labout are so consumed with Power, and the peks of the jobs, they are more than willing to suck up to FG. Labour are actually championing the cuts. They will do anything rather than implement the sensible solutions to our bloody mess. Third tax rate for anyone over 100k (extra 2% versus the current high tax rate) and limit ALL tax payer funded salaries to 100k per year. But Labour will not do this for the following reasons ….

1) They are in bed with the Unions, and the Public sector workers are the Unions.
2) They get most of their funding from the welthy. So taxig the welathy would impact their pockets, and lose them funding at the next election.

FG/Labour/FF are all one and the same…. A shower of lieing bastards who will look after their own first, and the most vulnerable in this society second.
They dont have the foresight to see that by removing further education avenues for the graduates, they will potentially kill the smart economy, or force the multi-nationals to hire in PHD’s from outside Europe and drive up racial tensions.
They dont see that by sticking 2% on the luxury goods like washing up liquid, detergent etc, that the are basically saying two fingers up to the poorest in our society. Its ok for the wealthier people in thi country. They can afford a car to drive up the North. its the poor gits that dont have a car, that will be forcd to buy their weekly shop, their christmas presents in the south.
Cuttng child benefit across the board, again has a much bigger impact to the poorer in society. The welthier in teh country wont even notice the 10 euro drop. Whereas the 100,000 people living below the povert line, will feel it in their bellies.
This Government does not give a fiddlers about how the least well of in this country are living. They are more concerned about talking about how people dress in the Dail, how to salute eachother.
People, please do not vote FF/FG/Labour EVER again. They will get the message. If a by-election comes around, do not give a single vote to the establishment parties. Maybe then, they will get a clear message…. We will not accept this crap ANYMORE.

Cal. You’re making me sad. I’ve always voted Labour hoping some day their party would grow big enough to compete with FF and FG. If we keep bashing them it’s back to FF. I can’t bear the thought of it. Personally I’d prefer a government that consisted of TDs without any party whip where decisions could be made by our representatives for the good of the country. I’d just like most of them to be socialists. I’m starting to despair slightly – which hurts as I’m really an optimist.

I dont know of any under grads that attend college solely because they can get a grant

Or to go on the dole. The grant is a subsistance grant, it is just enough to pay travel and a small contribution to living but it is hardly enough to encourage people to use it as a lifestyle choice.

Apologies I misread ur post, riggt you were saying postgrads were using the grant then going on the dole.

Bloody predictive text….I was saying I thought you were saying post grads were using the grant then going on the dole…get it right stupid smart phone…

To be fair, I don’t think anyone could survive on the grant alone, you’d always need another source of income. But it does make things easier for people whose mammies and daddies can’t afford to bankroll them. Loans and jobs may be harder to come by these days, also.

I think it’s very important that people from all backgrounds have the best possible chance of reaching the highest level of educational attainment that their motivation and ability allows.

I just finished a post-grad that I paid out of my own pocket, can’t say I noticed any significant difference between the likes of me and my grant funded classmates in terms of commitment and attendance. If anything, they had better records, generally not having full time jobs or families to think about.