On Monday the Irish Times ran a piece with the headline, “No giveaway budget this year, Ministers told. Summer economic statement will not be agreed until next week at earliest.”
Well, that’s us told.
Just who exactly do these politicians think they are? You hear this all the time – giveaway budget, goodies etc. The only thing that is given away when it comes to government ministers drawing up budgets is our money. It is the taxpayers that have already “given away” their hard earned income in the form of tax to our governing overlords who then decide who is a worthy recipient of our money and who is not.
A word on titles. The Minister for Public Expenditure is Jack Chambers and the Minister for Finance is Paschal Donohoe. Why the two Ministers? What nonsense is this? I can only assume these two have a department each which makes no sense. That’s an extra expense right there that we don’t need. Someone is going to tell me that this is because of coalition politics. It looks very irregular to me. In the westminster parliamentary system, which this country inherited upon independence, you should only have one Minister for Finance, or Chancellor of the Exchequer (that title goes back to Norman times when the gold was laid out on a checkered blanket). Two is an unnecessary and needless extravagance – “a giveaway” with our money, so to speak.
Just remember, the government does not have any of its own money, ever. The only money it does have comes from you the taxpayer and in Ireland’s case, all that corporate tax from the American multinationals. Such is the tax haul and budget surplus, that the aim is to put more than €100bn of the surplus in two sovereign wealth funds by 2035 to address future pension, climate and infrastructure challenges.
Why? There is a housing crisis now, yet the government does not seem very eager on spending any of that surplus to solve that problem today. Also, having more money than the Brits doesn’t seem to benefit us at all. Despite the UK being up to their eyes in debt, with the forecast for 2024-25 debt interest alone will total £104.9 billion, they still manage to build the Elizabeth tube line as well as extensions to the tube lines they already have, and Crossrail.
We here, in Ireland, still don’t have a metro or even a train line connecting the airport to the city centre which drives me absolutely bonkers. I spent E80 coming back from the airport on Sunday. A journey that would have cost me £10 maximum (probably £5) on the London underground. It is just not acceptable. Why do Irish people accept it?
No one is ever merely asked to pay tax. That is a demand backed up with some chilling threats of prosecution, fines and possible incarceration should you try and get tricky with the Irish Revenue. Will your nearest and dearest be able to hop on the tube to visit you in jail? No they will not.
And despite the stupendous surplus, Irish taxpayers still struggle with the cost of living, including the ever increasing cost of energy because of the net zero mania and the ridiculous cost of groceries.
Two week ago it was reported that “Ireland is the second most expensive country in the European Union — behind only Denmark — with prices just over 38 per cent above the average in the bloc, according to new figures from Eurostat.” When it comes to alcohol and tobacco, prices in Ireland are the most expensive in the EU at 205 per cent of the average. Much of this is due to Government taxation, and more recently, minimum unit pricing on alcohol. Thanks so much.
And it is not just the bad stuff: restaurants and hotel prices are the second highest in the EU, behind only Denmark, at 29 per cent above average. Communications costs are almost 40 per cent above average. Ireland is also the third most expensive country for electricity, gas and fuel with prices over 17 per cent above average.
In other words – our government hates us. They like to punish the Irish voter, so they can suck up to the foreign governments, the NGOs and so on. Then they can say, see, we are willing to freeze the old folk to death, despite our surplus, because climate change.’ We are just the best boys in the entire climate change class.
This also means it is easier for said politicians to secure jobs after they finish ‘governing’ us usually with the NGOs and all the other groups that have org in their website. All just a coincidence I’m sure.
There are really only one set of people that our politicians – all of them – really love and have a genuine affinity for. And they don’t live in Ireland.
Anyway, we must continue living in one of the most expensive countries in the EU but know that you – dear reader – will not be enjoying a ‘budget giveaway.’ Heaven forfend. But there are a few groups that are exempt from the big squeeze.
Mark my words, the giveaway for some of the government favourites will continue. The IPAS centres, they still have to be paid for. So you can expect your tax money to be shovelled to whatever is the latest carpetbagger who has decided to rent out the only hotel in the village to the government as an IPAS centre.
And of course there will be plenty of giveaways to the favourite government client – the humble Irish NGO. You can bet your bottom Euro that the Irish government will continue to use your taxed income to pay the army of NGOs out there that will then use that money to lobby you, the much abused Irish taxpayer, for funding for some cause that goes directly against your interests. Like the whole open border fandango or the groups that demand the entire place plastered with Rainbow flags every June, give me strength.
It must be very expensive to keep the National Women’s Council and the Irish Council for Civil Liberties and Big Gay in the style to which they have come accustomed to. And that style is often advocating for some government policy under the pretence that they are independent from the government. They are not.
Sure things are not as bad as they are in the UK which has very serious structural issues so don’t expect either of the lads to be crying come budget day. The only people that should be crying are us the long suffering, Irish taxpayer whose hard earned income is dished out to whoever and whatever the Irish government deems worthy today.
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