Madam, – My husband and I now find ourselves at the end of a month close to having no money in our wallets to buy food or petrol. We are struggling under the weight of a huge mortgage, our take-home pay is diminishing under a torrent of new taxes, and massively inflated energy and food bills.
We are 12 weeks away from welcoming our first child into this world and left wondering how we will manage to find the extra €1,000-plus a month in child care in addition to the added costs of nappies, food and clothing for our bundle of joy.
And now it seems the Government is going to means-test child benefit based on take-home income, with no consideration for the outgoings. This is grossly unfair.
Yet again it is the middle-income earners who will be made to pay to get this country out of the Government-made mess. The poor will rightly continue to be subsidised, the rich will continue to pay accountants to ensure they barely make any tax contributions, the public service wage bill will be left overly paid with too many employees for the needs of this country, and the Government will think up new ways to target people like me to pay for it all. Sure what do I need savings for, why not take every spare penny that I have? Aren’t I lucky to have enough money to fuel my car for three out of every four weeks? That, at least, will make the Greens happy.
I hope our esteemed public representatives enjoy their pay, double pensions and expenses. Not to mention their bribes and “dig-outs” and under-the-table top-ups to their monthly income. I am quite sure cutting child benefit means nothing to any of them, because they are awash with cash, while the rest of us drown to pay the country’s debt. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – I concur completely with the sentiments expressed about the McCarthy report by Colm Tóibín and Peter Sirr (Home News and The Arts, August 11th) on its treatment of the arts.
Undoubtedly there is an inherent contradiction in stating that our country’s profile has diminished internationally and then identifying Culture Ireland – one of the few ways our country has of attaining such an international profile – as expendable. It seems that the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing! – Yours, etc,
Madam, – Karl Whelan’s article (Opinion, August 13th) gives a very clear and concise picture of the main concerns about Nama, particularly following the Carroll judgment in the Supreme Court. This article should be circulated to every member of the Oireachtas as mandatory reading before the Dáil and Senate “debates” take place. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – Premiership football clubs sometimes enter transfer contracts along the following lines. We will pay you X amount of money now and if, and when, the player completes 200 appearances for us we will then, and only then, pay you an additional amount.
Why can’t Nama do the same? Why pay extra money now based on a projected rise in value given that, if it were possible to project with any accuracy we wouldn’t be in the mess we are in at all.
The football approach would meet the EU requirement to have a projected value aspect included.
Or is this too sensible? – Yours, etc,
Madam, – We are being advised that Nama will purchase assets at inflated values and will recoup their outlay when prices rise in the future.
If Nama is right, it means that today’s property prices are grossly undervalued.
So why is nobody buying? – Yours, etc,