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The Department of Enterprise, Trade & Employment has made ‘poor progression’ in handing out lump sum payments owed to employees, according to Deputy Noel Coonan. In September, the redundancy section was processing claims for June 2009. Today the department is still handling claims for the same month.
 Deputy Noel Coonan “Two months on and the Department is still stuck dealing with claims received in June. I accept there has been an exceptional increase in applications lodged over 2009 but with the Government predicting an extra 750,000 people on the dole next year, the Department should be trying harder than ever to significantly reduce waiting times in preparation for this. People are relying greatly on these payments for financial security and they are entitled to be promptly paid their entitlements,” said the Fine Gael TD.
“The recent Budget did not provide a comprehensive strategy to get people back to work. We do not want to be complaining about the queue of over 42,000 people waiting grimly on their redundancy payments. We want to be able to say that people have faced the worst and our economy is recovering but this Government continues to lead us down a bleak path.
Figures released to me through a parliamentary question show the redundancy section is currently processing rebate applications submitted by post from March 2009 and those filed online from April 2009. This means the waiting time is approximately eight to nine months. The Government is not providing an efficient system at a time when recession is biting and people are in desperate need of what is owed to them,” continued Deputy Coonan.
Since January last, the department have processed 45,201 claims. However, there are 42,591 claims still waiting to be processed.
Deputy Coonan has submitted parliamentary questions to Tanáiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Mary Coughlan T.D., asking her to outline the number of people in North Tipperary waiting on redundancy payments but the Minister was unable to provide such figures.
The number of incoming redundancy claims is up 96% on the same period last year.
Nationally, at least twenty six thousand mortgages are in arrears, according to figures published by the Financial Regulator, today .
These figures show almost 3.3 per cent of all residential mortgages, are in arrears for 90 days or longer up to the end of September of this year.
 There are 26,271 mortgages in arrears with 17,767 homeowners behind in payments for more than 6 months. The figure is up from June of 2008, when almost 14,000 mortgages, equal to 1.4 per cent of all mortgages, were more than three months in arrears.
These figures released by the Financial Regulator also shows a rise in repossessions with court orders granted in some 79 cases.
Tipperary residents have welcomed the news that mortgage interest relief has been extended for a further seven years. This move will bring some relief to people who bought their homes at the peak of the market and now find themselves in negative equity.
The relief was due to expire in 2010 but as a support to homeowners in negative equity, the recent Budget extended the entitlement to mortgage interest relief until the end of 2017. There has been a lot of justified negativity surrounding the recent Budget and this extension provides at least some assistance to struggling homeowners.
The Budget provides that qualifying loans taken out before 1 July 2011 will continue to get relief at current levels for seven years. Transitional arrangements will apply to loans taken out in the subsequent 18 months at a reduced level and duration.
April’s supplementary Budget announced that from May 2009 mortgage interest relief would be discounted for any mortgage over seven years. Therefore tax relief was only available on the interest payments for the first seven years of your mortgage but unavailable for the eighth and subsequent years. However this relief has now been pushed forward to help alleviate some of the pressure on homeowners.
This is especially good news for younger people who have just stepped onto the property ladder and have found themselves unemployed and with a huge mortgage.
However, it is small compensation for the mistakes made by this Government’s over-reliance on the property market.
Full details of the deadline extension will be outlined in the Finance Bill.
Thurles Chamber’s annual Christmas Dinner was well attended on Thursday night last, by the majority of business leaders in the town together with staff.
One of this years Special Guest Speakers was Mr Mark Fielding CEO of Irish Small and Medium Enterprises Association Ltd (ISME) the Independent Business Organisation.
Speaking to those in attendance Mr Fielding stated:
Madam President Anne Strappe, Honoured Guests, Chamber Members, Ladies and Gentlemen, Friends, I stand before you this evening with mixed emotions.
As a Thurles man I am humbled and proud to be asked to speak at the 2009 Thurles Chamber of Commerce Annual Christmas Dinner.
 Mr Mark Fielding CEO ISME I am proud, as the CEO of ISME. that I represent the hopes and aspirations, the successes and failures, the hard working community that account for almost 99% of all businesses in Ireland. I represent YOU, the owner/managers of SMALL and MEDIUM BUSINESS throughout this country. I am humble because I return to the place of my birth.
I was born in Suirside; the town that educated me, from Mother Dolores’ classroom in the Ursuline laundry in Suirside, where as a two and three year old I sat with my classmates from the itinerant community, through the primary schools of the Ursulines and Scoil Ailbe and the secondary school of the Christian Brothers. The altar boys, the boy scouts, the street leagues, Thurles Sarsfields, Thurles Rugby club. Where I served my time in JJ Fielding Ltd. as a messenger boy, store boy, van boy and dog walker. As a bar hop in Tom Brereton’s, as a helper in Jackie Griffins as a footer on Tom Ryan’s bog and as an articled clerk in Chambers Fewer and Halley.
Thurles is where I first experienced the sweet taste of success where I set up my very first business and where I first felt the gloom of business failure and where I learned my first business lessons; when you see an opportunity grab it; never flaunt your success and always secure your supply chain. It was Christmas time and I had been selling penny candles to my friends and classmates in Mother Dolores’ class (actually they were getting a bargain at 2 for a penny) and spending my profits in Mrs Condon’s shop on ice cream and bubble gum and sharing my largess with all the other children on the Square. However it was on my third visit to the suppliers that my world came crashing down in Enron proportions, when Christy Deegan, the sacristan collared me with a jumper full of candles on the steps of the Cathedral. Word had got out and my first venture ended, but not before the window of every tinkers caravan was aglow with holy Christmas candles. It was 1954 and I was 4 years old.
Continue reading Thurles Born Mark Fielding ISME Speaks At Chamber Dinner
Last Wednesday’s Budget should have been strongly centred on job creation and sustainability but instead failed miserably to help unemployed people or employees holding onto a job by their fingernails, according to Deputy Noel Coonan. The Fine Gael TD also said this Government has effectively cancelled Christmas for a majority of the people of North Tipperary.
Deputy Noel Coonan Deputy Noel Coonan stated:
“As a result of the Budget, we have people living on less than €100 a week. We have 315,000 public servants nationwide taking a pay cut. We have extremely irate parents suffering 4% cuts in Social Welfare. We are going to have riots on the streets and heavy industrial action. We are facing one of the worse winters in the history of the state.
The Government has pick-pocketed the most poor and sick with prescription charges for medical card holders, an increase in the drugs payment threshold and a mere €10million for home care packages. The €221million cut to child benefit will rob families of €16 per child per month and will not help get this country back to work.
The farming community has sadly been attacked once again with a 13% cut in the Department’s Budget. To ease some of the pain for this vital sector, Fine Gael called for the Government to exempt farm diesel from the carbon tax but in return they slapped 4cent on every litre. Another sector that is struggling badly are thousands of home owners who are in negative equity and under huge worry and stress. This Government has provided no real help for these people.
Who would have ever thought Fianna Fáil would stoop so low to take money off blind people and widows by reducing their pension? Meanwhile, they failed to bring those on highest incomes further into the tax net. Where is the fairness and equality in that?”
The Fine Gael Deputy went on to said that not even the lowest of the low paid will escape a wage cut. Part-time public sector workers not in the tax net and earning less than €18,500 will face a 5% drop in take-home pay, almost twice as much as a Minister for State.
Continue reading The Low Paid Shoulder The Burdens Of The December Budget
 Thurles Credit Union 'People of the Year' Award Thurles Credit Union presented its annual ‘People of the Year Awards’ at a function in the Anner Hotel on Saturday night last, when a number of people were honoured for their contribution to their local communities on a voluntary level.
Thanks to many nights of careful planning this eagerly awaited annual event has now become the most prominent award ceremony in Co Tipperay and an interesting facet of this year’s recipients is that they represent seven different locations in Thurles Credit Union’s area of commonality, with Horse & Jockey, Gortnahoe, Littleton, Holycross, Upperchurch, Killenaule and Thurles itself, all represented on the presentation podium.
Among the many guests at the Awards dinner, were President of Thurles Lions Club, Kevin Barry; President of Thurles Chamber, Anne Strappe; Ms Jean O’Sullivan, representing “The Tipperary Star”; Superintendent Tony Cogan of An Garda Siochána, and adjudicators: Michael Dundon, editor of The Tipperary Star, former Mayor of Thurles, Mae Quinn, and George Willoughby, latter twice a recipient of this award.
Guest of honour, Mayor of Thurles, Evelyn Nevin, commended all the nominees for their input into the town and surrounding areas and to their respective organisations and communities at large.
Mrs Nevin stated:
“Volunteerism is now even more important than ever in our society and Thurles Credit Union is to be highly commended for making so much time and making such financial resources available in an effort to publicly recognise the huge input by unpaid volunteers in their respective communities. It is my sincere hope that the Credit Union will continue to highlight the great work being done by people such as those being honoured here tonight, together with all the associations and organisations they each represent”.
Credit Union Vice President Michael Campbell stated that Thurles Credit Union was delighted to show appreciation for the wonderful work, generosity of spirit, inspiration and dedication shown by all those nominated. The aim of the Awards is to formally recognise people in our communities who work tirelessly to help their neighbours, friends, team mates and other members of their community, whether that community be social, developmental, sporting or environmental. Volunteers are a vital element in the fabric of Irish society.
Continue reading Thurles Credit Union People Of The Year Awards 2009
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