Madam, – I was recently made redundant from the construction industry. How will cutting my dole money incentivise me to find non-existent jobs in that or any other industry? Also, why should I pay the same flat rate of property tax as people with inflated salaries and state pensions such as Bertie Ahern, Alan Dukes and Ruairi Quinn – not to mention Seánie FitzPatrick or Michael Fingleton? – Yours, etc,
Madam, – The resolve of the Government to introduce an immediate 10 per cent reduction in pay of all new entrants to the public service is set to be tested quite soon. At present the salary of a TD is linked to the grade of principal officer in the civil service. This should mean that the winner of the Donegal South-West byelection will be earning a salary 10 per cent less than his constituency colleagues. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – It was interesting to hear Brian Lenihan state that “everyone has to make a contribution” in relation to the current financial situation.
I take it then that he intends “everyone” to include members of Dáil Éireann and that their contribution would be the elimination of attendance money, that all expenses be vouched for, that quangos be scrapped and TD salaries be significantly reduced.
It won’t have a significant effect in financial terms but it would be a positive indication of the Government’s sincerity. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – In the last budget, Brian Lenihan admitted that increasing the rate of VAT by half a percentage point was a mistake, and yet he’s planning on making that same mistake four times over by 2014.
How can the Minister for Finance see this as being a credible source of revenue for the State purse?
With the increase in VAT, the cost of general goods will go up, and that means that people will be unable to afford to purchase goods and just end up spending less again – we saw in 2009 that VAT receipts were down as people couldn’t afford to shop in Ireland with the increase in VAT and instead sought their goods elsewhere.
As a retail sector employee, our businesses depends on people spending money, which in turn funds jobs. Jobs bring in income tax for the government and growth for the economy. Why does Mr Lenihan insist on damaging our economy further? This is just double-taxation! If we don’t revolt now, we may as well just hand over our sovereignty and power to Olli Rehn. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – A single person earning €45,400 yearly will lose €35.80 weekly under the Government’s proposed income tax changes. A married couple with only one income at the same €45,400 yearly level will lose €47.67 weekly. The Government also promises that marginal rates of direct taxation will remain unchanged, thereby confirming that overall, PRSI and income levy rates will remain unchanged, strongly suggesting that this extra burden on single income married couples will not be subject to any countervailing PRSI or levy relief. That the knife sinks more deeply into the lives of those who undertake the burdens of parenthood and lifelong companionship is demographically wrongheaded, comprising clear evidence that the sort of warped, unprincipled thinking that rendered us barren economically, is, on top of all, biased against the Nation’s children. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – I am a music teacher working in post-primary education. I thank God every morning that I have a job in music education. I have several friends who struggle to earn a basic wage working in the music industry as performers and composers. They depend on the artists’ tax exemption.
Top earners in the arts and music industry – the rock star millionaires, the ones always featured in the media – pay little or no tax. At one level, I welcome the Government’s announcement in the four- year plan that the artists’ tax relief is to be curtailed. Let’s hope that this disastrous government’s curtailing measures will hit the rich rockers and protect my musician and composer friends, as well as others in the visual and literary arts who are struggling and who depend on this exemption. The lack of detail in this plan is worrying for us all. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – I have two questions about our so-called recovery plan. If new public servants are to join on 10 per cent less than current pay scales, will this also apply to new TD’s coming in after the general election? Additionally, if this plan is designed to avoid a default on sovereign and bank (now sovereign) debts, ensuring bondholders remain intact, has the Government considered other ways of applying a haircut to bondholders without defaulting?
For example, could we return bondholders money to them in full but deduct any interest paid on those bonds before refunding their original investment? In life assurance contracts, I believe this is called “cancelled from inception”. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – Page 102 of the four- year plan states that net pay for a single person on income of €55,000 will be reduced by €1,860 per annum by 2014. The net pay for a married one-income family on €55,000 will be reduced by €2,310 per annum.
Coupled with the IMF proposal to lower the income tax rate of Irish women returning to the workforce by five percentage points, this further devalues the role of all mothers at home doing the vital work of raising our next generation.
Thank God there is an election looming – I would urge mothers at home to choose our next set of representatives carefully. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – So Ireland has a four-year plan with higher taxes and lower wages (Front page and supplement, November 25th). Hello: welcome to the real world. As you reported (Opinion, November 23rd), public salaries and welfare benefits in the Republic are substantially higher – in many cases twice as high – than than in the North (for that read the UK). A single person in Ireland pays tax after €18,300; in the UK, this threshold is closer to £9,000. In my own profession, a full professor at a university earns on average £60,000 annually; in Ireland, this figure is at least €100,000. So get real: you’ve over-paid and under-taxed yourselves for too long. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – In its four-year plan, the Government promised to protect the poor and the marginalised. It clearly failed to protect the poor (reducing the minimum wage, etc).
By treating the rich differently, the Government has succeeded in marginalising and protecting the better-paid members of society (politicians, bankers, upper civil servants).
So it failed the poor, but protected the “marginalised”. Is this another example of half-truths from the Government? Or, have we turned yet another corner and arrived at a place where politicians actually keep half their promises? I remain, confused. – Yours, etc,