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EVERY WEEK, TheJournal.ie offers a selection of statistics and numerical nuggets to help you digest the week that has just passed.
€4.69 – The amount, per week, that a single childless person will be expected to spend on a USB device for an internet connection. That’s according to the ballpark figures published by the new Insolvency Service of Ireland this week.
€19.12 – The approximate amount that a judge fined someone after their phone went off in a courtroom in Michigan. That was notable for one reason: the judge was issuing the $25 fine to… himself.
€157 - The amount that a French cabinet minister will have to pay the Irish government in property tax. Hélène Conway-Mouret, who is the minister responsible for French expatriates, lived in Ireland for decades and has an apartment in north Dublin, worth €180,000. She’ll face the property tax kicking in this July, like everyone else (except, hopefully, this soldier).
0.19 per cent – The interest rate paid by Ireland to borrow €500 million for three months at an auction earlier this week. This was significantly less than the 0.24 per cent paid for an identical loan last month.
33.76 per cent – The amount of the Irish government’s ‘voted’ spending (as in, accounted for in the Budget and not through other laws) taken up by public pay and pensions. Revised Budget figures this week put the bill at €18.07 billion for this year. The government says it needs that to be €300 million lower this year. And yet…
2,016 – The number of votes cast against the Croke Park II pay deal at ICTU’s Public Service Committee this week, officially killing the deal for now. Only 761 votes – cast by five unions – supported the deal.
One – The number of countries accidentally omitted from a widely-cited 2010 academic paper which examined the effects of high national debt on economic growth. An error in a Microsoft Excel formula meant the Reinhart-Rogoff study forgot to include calculations about Belgium – and if they had, their findings (linking high debt with poor growth, and therefore advocating austerity to tackle those debts) would have been very different.
54,000 – The capacity, in pounds, of anhydrous ammonia that could be stored at the fertiliser factory at West, Texas – the site of Friday morning’s massive explosion. By comparison, the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, which killed t68 people, used 4,800 pounds of ammonium nitrate.
108 – The number of Irish citizens who were taking part in Monday’s Boston Marathon, which was hit by two explosions at the finish line while most participants were finishing. At least three Irish athletes were on the home straight, just yards from the site of the two bombings, when the blasts went off.
4,700 – The number of police and military staff on security duty at Margaret Thatcher’s funeral on Wednesday.
2,300 – The number of invited mourners.
0 out of 50 – The number of Irish beef products which were shown to have traces of horse meat in EU tests published this week. 193 out of 4,144 samples tested across the continent tested positive for equine DNA.
120,000 – The number of giant snails (yes, that’s GIANT SNAILS) found in one county in Florida alone in the last three years. And we mean GIANT BLOODY SNAILS.
It is of the utmost importance not to penalise the orange pyjama brigade.
This is absolutely ridiculous that they can’t implement this, why on earth would anyone be against this. It would go some way to encouraging parents who have no interest in their children’s education in putting them through school to get a few bob at the very least so the next generation of them might have some hope of getting off the public purse.
Zappone is part of the Green brigade.
She clearly said she’d walk if they put it through, and the government is so fragile it’ll cave over any level of dissent within the current set-up.
Get ready for more of the same.
New politics, m’hole.
Zappone will walk ha,ha,that’s a good one she has sold out for a Ministerial pension she’s going nowhere.
I wouldn’t say penalise. Definitely agree that those who take responsibility should not lose out.
The point of the child protection groups was that taking that money off families who are poor will hurt the children.
The point that no one put to them was that if parents are willing to let their children take over a month off school, I think it’s fairly obvious that the child need it is not being spent on the children!
There are no children left home for a month by their parents. We do have safeguards for this. Taking money from poor parents impacts poor children. Common sense.
Heaven forbid that some politician would have a pair big enough to push this through. Unless a child or teenager is in full time education, not one cent should be paid to them ! Then, no hawses, no scramblers, no beer and maybe end up with some kids with jobs instead of no prospects !
Deborah what’s the trigger point for intervention? Obviously very few would take a full month continuously unless they are badly I’ll but when does the trigger go for sporadic days adding up to something significant?
Yeah that will really help alright David, give these parents even less money and the children will be even more neglected, astounding that so many people would actually advocate this?
@Deborah
Who says the reason for poor attendance is poverty?
Those parents just don’t give a crap about their children and the money ends up in the pub or in Kinahans pocket in anyway!
@William
Those children are not neglected because of poverty but because their parents simply don’t care!
What has money to do with neglecting children?
You don’t need money to love and care for your child!
There are millions of wonderful parents who are poor and there’s loads of shitty parents who are loaded!
To neglect a child is a conscious decision and not a matter of financial means!
“Yeah that will really help alright David, give these parents even less money and the children will be even more neglected”
They wouldn’t get less money if they got out of their pyjamas and brought the kids to school in the first place.
The point of this measure clearly wasn’t to increase school attendance, though that would be a nice knock on side effect.
The point of it was that parents who don’t send their children to school enough do not deserve the benefits from the state as they are not abiding by state law.
I agree with you. It’s very hard to send your children to national school from Nigeria or Poland. Therefore don’t penalise the parents. Penalise the taxpayer instead.
Well it should be!!
Bad decision , there needs to be some form of punishment because some parents are just not bothered about sending their kids to school .
What is wrong with this government, if you linked child benefit to school attendance right up to leaving cert, in ten years time the word discrimination would disappear from certain people’s vocabulary, plus saving the tax payer having to fund dole payments and rent allowance.
It should be linked. The scroungers will make sure their kids are that school everyday of the week ensuring we don’t end up with another generation of degenerates with their hands out.
So childless Leo consults childless Katherine on child welfare!
That’s as nonsensical as consulting Ends Kenny on matters of national defense and security.
I don’t think being childless means you can’t see common sense. There’s more on the table here obviously.
@David Mc Shite,
She’s an expert in claiming travel expenses.
True Tony…. But where is this common sense?
Pity….good idea
WRONG ANSWER!
A cave in to the open borders brigade.
Varakar and zappone ….. Need more be said ?
One of those issues where you can agree with both sides. Programmes to help kids succeed at school are needed but the total lack of accountability from parents also needs to be addressed. Hitting their pocket will get them interested very fast. Perhaps it should be linked more to academic engagement, even outside the traditional classroom, and academic achievement, rather on purely signing the attendance sheet.
Don’t know how that would work very well, honestly. The state can expect parents to at least send their kids to the school gates. The parents do not, however, deserve to be punished if their child does not engage or achieve in school. It’s not really their fault.
Imagine if the child had a terrible, unengaging teacher. Should the parents be made to suffer because of a bad teacher? No, attendance is what we should base this on, because it is directly the responsibility of the parents.
Parental engagement is one of the most important things in learning. We’re talking about minors here, parents should be held accountable for no effort being made by them. Some kids will not do well even with good attendance but attendance is a massive start.
Tony , some parents think it’s the sole responsibility of the teacher when it comes to education , no input at all from parents , some are sending their kids in with no homework or nothing done .
Suzie, surely you should say “some” parents? Most parents actually recognise the value of education I think. A move like this would sharpen attitudes for those who don’t.
Tony , I did say ” some ” .
“no input at all from parents”?
Tony, l started my comment with “some ” parents , meaning ” not all parents ” ?
Wtf – can you not understand the word ‘Some’
It’s their culture not to finish education.
And if there was a link between money and making sure your kids go school do you not think that might change attitudes?
Pity it was a good proposal. FF took the easy choice and sided with the do gooders.
At least the country can continue to send child benifit out to children all across eastern europe who dont live or attend school here..
This is an interesting point. Had this scheme gone ahead, how would non-resident children’s attendance been assessed?
What about targeting absent children? I thought it would also target non existent children and welfare abuse? Pity this can’t be implemented.
Zappone makes a difference? Theres more to her than expenses acumen?
Zappone has zero political experience of anything and the kindest description of her is of a kindly but clueless dear who is generally in favour of nice ideas such as equality, peace, Christmas and an end to all nasty things in the world. The only reason she’s been appointed to the cabinet is because Enda the idiot was afraid he would get his knuckles rapped by the equality bullies for not picking more women. Zappone would be out of her depth on any county council.
How big a problem is this really? I know a fair few struggling families who make schooling their kids a huge priority. I cannot recall from my own schooldays nor my kids back in the days any serious serial truants. Anyway – would you want your own kids to be stuck in a classroom with such enforced attendees?
If a kid of 10 doesn’t want to go to school do you not think it’s a parent’s responsibility to ensure they get an education!?
Why?, because it makes sense ….
Can we not get these things right….. No schooling no funds/ end of !!
So the fragile government backs down on another measure that is unpopular with the left and the anti-society party cronies. 2nd about face in a few weeks.
How are they going to get a tough budget through in October??
Should be linked to immunisation
Or sterilisation – after 4 kids…
Sterilisation BEFORE kids…
Good. The problem of low school attendance won’t be solved by punishing poor parents with further poverty. A lot of comments on here are criticising the “scrounger” parents for raising “degenerate” children who will grow up looking for handouts, but why do these parents seemingly take no interest in sending their children to school? It’s a cycle of inequality along with a poorly managed education system.
These parents already feel resentment towards the education system and government, further punishments will not make a long term change. I don’t understand why people would rather tackle the unpleasant consequences of poverty than dealing with tackling poverty itself. Ensure everyone has a decent standard of living/equal opportunities & you’ll create parents better equipped to raise happy, bright children.
Your very first sentence assumes poor parents are bad parents. There’s a thing called “social reproduction”. The only way to break that is education.
I only refer to poor parents because this measure would’ve affected them mostly. Parents in D4 with kids skipping school won’t notice their child benefit being taken away, parents from poorer areas will. That aside, I agree with you.
Why go against what the majority of people want to see implement in this Country?
@dwayne j – Why not – Our politicans go against what the majority want. Incidently, how do you know what the majority view is ?
James I speak with people on a daily basis. And the majority of people I have spoken to are in favour.
Very mixed feelings about this. We already have the threat of jail, and if it is such a big issue and jail is not preventing truancy, I’m not sure losing money would either. However, I imagine it would not be easy getting the dept of education to cooperate with the dept of social welfare never mind getting teachers to do the extra work needed
I’m wondering how many parents have been jailed so far for this?
Losing money would hit parents where it hurts – as long as the system implemented is fair, robust and easily implemented (as I typed that last sentence, I kind of chuckled to myself as such a system has never existed in Ireland before).
Jail costs money and separates a family. Withholding child benefit doesn’t do either. If child benefit can’t be linked to parental responsibility to make sure your kid goes to school then I’ve no idea what it should reasonably be linked to.
@shakka. I’d imagine to process of cutting money would be as onerous as prosecuting. Investigations, appeals etc. Then there’s school record keeping especially for those who move schools.
Anne Marie, the DOE DSW connection is already in place and works very well. I personally believe that jail is no place for parents in cases like this. However a threat to income is a concentrator of the mind. Maybe not withdrawal of full DSW payments but certainly a percentage deduction is appropriate?
The government financially encourage having children then don’t care about their future leaving them with abusive parents.
The IMF use this tool when agreeing to funding for third world countries. They take the long term view that education will go a long way to solving social problems. I agree with this wholeheartedly! However this would not be helpful here in Ireland as our problems are different. I would agree however to making a portion of welfare payments subject to school attendance all the way up to LCert.
I wonder if this idea was put forward initially to prevent weldare fraud eg. 2 childrens allowance being claimed for 1 child. Just a thought ?
There is another argument against this proposal: children with chronic illness or ongoing medical issues often miss school through no fault of their own. Children who are the main carers of their parents often miss school too. Should they be penalised too?
Who can all be accommodated.
In Holland my Brother is fined €120 per day if my nephew misses school without good reason. Last year he had to bring my wedding invitation to school in order to get days off to come over for it. A similar system would probably be better than taking money from them, They’ll just switch to whatever is cheaper than dutch gold to compensate.
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