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 Irish Apartheid And he climbed with the lad up the Eiffelberg Tower.
“This” cried the Mayor,” is your town’s darkest hour!
The time for all ‘Whos‘ who have blood that is red
To come to the aid of their country !” he said.
“We’ve GOT to make noises in greater amounts!
So open your mouth, lad! For every voice counts!”
This verse comes courtesy of the great and late Theodor Seuss Geisel (Dr Seuss) – from his children’s poem ‘Horton Hears A Who!’
Reported details of €40 Million in bonuses being paid to bankers sparked widespread anger among the fair minded people of Ireland in the past few days. Readers will be aware that while workers on the minimum wage are about to have their pay slashed, those employed by one of the institutions who assisted in bankrupting our country has been rewarded. This reward is being dished out in the very same week that our country, which declares in its Proclamation to support “Cherishing the children of the nation equally“, has been downgraded to junk yard status.
Bonuses should be awarded, based on how much revenue individuals attracts, while operating in accordance with accepted ethical, responsible and regulated banking practices. If we as a nation can take 4% from retired pensioners and break the ‘contract’ they have, we can most certainly extract 90% of the current bonus paid to individual bank workers. But history now teaches us clearly that inequality is core to the Irish model of government.
In the decade when we had most and when we quadrupled our spending on our public health services, Ireland’s current political leaders and their supporters failed spectacularly to reform our Irish health system, which presently allows an almost apartheid system to exist.
By apartheid, I mean, if you have money to pay privately, you can get into public hospitals quicker than public patients. You will receive treatment more quickly and you are guaranteed consultant provided care, while recuperating in a single or semi-private room. In contrast a public patient is more likely to be viewed by a junior doctor and to remain in a multi-bed ward or on a trolley in a drafty hospital corridor.
Ireland is unique in Europe, in that we still permit private care to exist in our public hospital system. We allow the wealthy to skip past in the queue, ahead of our poorer public patients. The cost of the care of these private patients, passing through our public system, is largely subsidised by public money, while minimum wage patients remain verbally silent. This apartheid operated health system can also be seen clearly in our nursing homes, with two out of every three nursing home beds presently in the private sector.
We are well down the road of a privatised, double tiered provision of health-care which favours private patients over public patients, but we can undo the harm done and as citizens /patients, demand a quality and universal public health system to which we are all fully entitled too, under our constitution.
Our present government lives in fear of its public sector unions and work force and here apartheid also reigns. The cost of the public sector is currently €20 billion per annum and when their average 210 annual working days are divided into this €20 billion wage, the daily pay costs amount to around €95 million. Previously, the Department of Finance vowed to dock wages of public sector workers who would strike in protest over cutbacks. If even a fraction of public sector unions were to follow through on these threats to hold one day work stoppages, those protesting workers would be hit in their pockets and the Government’s Coffers would be boosted by millions per day. Our next government must confront the public service and their unions, head-on and take back the control that this present gutless administration have surrendered.
We were recently informed that we have an Automated Fingerprint Integrated System (AFIS) that cost €20m lying idle. Extra civilian staff, hired by the garda were expected to run this system, but these 50 staff at the GNIB headquarters, who are members of the Civil and Public Service Union (CPSU), have now refused to operate this system, saying it is inappropriate for clerical staff to do a job that gardai should do. However they will work the system in return for extra allowances. Meanwhile, Gardai openly admit that they have no idea how many people, recently arrived into Ireland, are now claiming entitlements to social benefits, using fake identities.
Where is Berty Ahern’s ‘Towards 2016’ ?
Was Sustaining Progress and Towards 2016 a contract? What happened to the Civil Service Verification Document Section 28 ‘Modernisation and Flexibility’?
The parties to this Agreement will co-operate with flexibility and modernization ……….,
The Public Service Pay Agreement provides that payment of these (pay) increases is dependent, in the case of each sector, organisation and grade, on verification of co-operation with flexibility and ongoing change.
There will be situations where existing work procedures must be adapted to respond to work requirements and traditional methods of performing particular tasks will have to be changed.
Under the terms of Towards 2016, payment of each of the four public service pay increases is dependent on verification of satisfactory achievement in relation to co-operation with flexibility and ongoing change.
Continue reading Apartheid Alive And Kicking In Collin’s Ireland
Opposition parties have reacted strongly to Minister for Finance, Brian Lenihan’s 2011 Budget stating it does not provide sufficient stimulus measures for the economy and middle and lower income earners are being asked to shoulder the gross incompetence of the present government.
 Deputy Noel Coonan TD Fine Gael’s finance spokesman Michael Noonan said it was the budget of a “puppet government” obeying their new masters the IMF and ECB, while allowing the State to draw down bailout funds.
Speaking following the publication of Budget 2011, Deputy Noel Coonan said Minister Brian Lenihan may have exempted old age pensioners from draconian cutbacks but carers, widowers, people with disabilities and the blind will all suffer from unfair cuts and will be paying for the “sins of the banks.”
Deputy Coonan stated: “Budget 2011 lacks imagination and any incentive for job creation. It does not inspire confidence and symbolises an old tired Government that should resign and vanish. How any Independent Deputy could support this Government bearing in mind what it has done to our people, beggars belief; especially on the pretence that old people are being looked after while carers, widowers, people with disabilities and the blind are made pay for the sins of the bank. Carers provide an invaluable service, saving the country millions, but these giving people are being penalized instead of rewarded and that is beyond grasp.
It’s unbelievable that any public representative could sell out our country for private benefits, while the Minister imposes a 4% reduction in most social welfare payments, resulting in a reduction of €8 to carers and those who are blind. Fine Gael is totally opposed to cutting payments to the most vulnerable.”
Speaking on agriculture the Deputy stated:
“Agriculture is the one industry which can save us and it has been ignored and was not worthy of even a mention in the Budget. Those on negative equity were also ignored. It’s those who are disadvantaged and vulnerable who will shoulder the majority of the burden yet again.”
Social groups are today digesting the details of Budget 2011. Barnardos says there is despair in many Irish households as a result of the cuts in child benefit.
The Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed says Ireland is a much colder place for those out of work, while Respond, the housing association, says cuts to social welfare and child benefit will inflict further hardship on families.
 The 2011 Budget passed its first test in the Dáil last night, with the Government having a comfortable majority of 82 votes to 77 on the first vote on the measures introduced. The Budget hit taxpayers hard through a reduction of 10% in the tax credits and bands, a new consolidated social charge of 7 % and the abolition of the PRSI ceiling. This combination of measures will lead to significant tax increases for almost all workers, with more people paying at both the standard and the higher rate. Changes are shown here at a glance:-
Motoring.
Petrol duty up 4c per litre and Diesel duty up 2c per litre and car scrappage scheme to be extended for further six months.
VRT relief for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles will continue at up to €2,500 until end of 2012.
Reform of the Ministerial State car system will see the cost of this fleet reduced by a third over the next two years.
Pay.
Taoiseach to take €14,000 pay cut, with Ministers to take €10,000 pay cut and President’s pay to be reduced to a maximum of €250,000.
A cap on public service pay of €250,000 with a maximum of €250,000 salary for judges and a 10pc cut in pay for new judges.
A 4% cut on public service pensions above €12,000 per year.
All Social welfare payments to be cut by 4%.
Those on the new reduced minimum wage not be brought into the tax net and top marginal tax rate to be kept at 52% for all taxpayers.
Income and health levies to be replaced by single universal social charge.
Old Reliables.
No duty rise on cigarettes and beer.
Pensions and Child Benefits.
No reduction in State Pension.
A €10 reduction to child benefit, with an additional €10 reduction for the third child.
Education.
Third-level registration fees will rise to €2,000, but families with more than one child in college will continue to pay the existing fee of €1,500 for the second and subsequent children.
Corporation tax.
No change to our 12.5pc Corporation tax rate.
Residential Property.
TA 1% stamp duty on all residential property transactions up €1m with a 2% stamp duty on all residential property transactions over €1m and property-based tax reliefs to be phased out by 2014.
Travel.
Travel tax reduced from €10 to €3 from March 2011 and only to remain if the airlines do not use it to raise their charges.
Banking.
The DIRT rate on ordinary deposit accounts increased by 2% to 27%, while the DIRT rate on longer-term deposit accounts increased by 2%c to 30%.
Capital Acquisitions.
Base for Capital Acquisitions Tax is being broadened by reducing the tax-free thresholds by 20%.
A middle-income family now stands to lose as much as €300 a month. A couple with three children and a household income of €75,000 who contribute €4,500 to their pension annually will see their net income fall by €1,815, or €151.25 a month.
There can be little doubt that persons on the lowest rung of society in Co Tipperary and countrywide stand to take the greatest pain.
 Lisheen Mine At Wednesday’s Joint Committee meeting, North Tipperary Deputy Noel Coonan was informed that the life of Lisheen Mine, Moyne, Thurles, Co Tipperary has been extended possibly to the end of 2014 and Anglo American Lisheen Mining Ltd see the site as having the potential to become a leading renewable energy location into the future.
The local Fine Gael TD who is a member of the Oireachtas Committee on Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, yesterday examined the topic of Irish mining and exploration. In attendance at the meeting was Mr John Elmes of Anglo American Ltd, owner of Lisheen Mine.
Deputy Noel Coonan stated:
“Additional mineral deposits have been uncovered at Lisheen mine and extraction will continue post 2014. We are exploring the idea that, on closure of Lisheen Mine, the site could become a forerunner in the field of renewable energy. The site, located between the villages of Moyne and Templetuothy, is ripe with opportunity having it’s own ESB sub-station and connection to the grid. It is ideally located off the M8 and is also in close proximity to the N7 so transport is not an issue. This is a viable opportunity that must be teased out. Mr Elmes and I both agreed that this industrial site already has excellent facilities in place and these should be maximised upon.
Anglo America is actively promoting the site as a centre for the production of wind and hydro energy because of its zoning as an industrial site and the facilities already there. So there’s no reason why the site could not also generate energy from sugar beet and anaerobic digestion and become a thriving industrial renewable energy site,” said Deputy Coonan.
I’m calling on the Government and all departments involved including the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources to do everything in its power to promote Lisheen Mine as a centre of renewable energy, especially in the area of ethanol production.
The sugar beet industry in Thurles should never have closed according to the European Court of Auditors’ report and I believe the industry could be reignited again and I will be pushing for this to happen in my role as Fine Gael’s CAP spokesperson.”
We the Irish State has spent €40m planning and designing an underground railway line that may never be built, recent figures reveal. Iarnród Éireann admit spending millions of euros on the second Dublin DART underground project, proposed to run from Docklands to Inchicore, even though 7.5 km of the 7.6 km line does not yet have planning permission. New figures show that €20million will have been spent this year alone planning this line.
 Killaloe bridge, North Tipperary One other high-profile rail project for our glorious capital, expected to cost €3 billion, the much hailed Metro North has already incurred costs of €135 million.
If both projects are shelved, because of huge cuts in public spending, it follows that hundreds of millions of taxpayers’ euro’s will have been flushed into the river Liffey. Read the Department of Transport Website here
Meanwhile, back in rural forgotten Tipperary, the much patched road to Two Mile Borris has begun to unravel again and when our present weather conditions subside sufficiently, we can look forward to enjoying a surface similar to a gravelled driveway.
In another scenario, a meeting of County Councillors from Clare and North Tipperary were told by Clare County Council Officials recently that they have earmarked €18,000 for repairs to half the bridge at Killaloe. But there are no plans to carry out similar repairs on the Tipperary half of the bridge, due to lack of funds.
The ten year wait for a ring road for Thurles obviously was not part of the “Lowry Secret Support Deal” for government either and we dare to ask the question here in North Tipp, was there ever any deal in the first place, as certainly we here presently resident in ‘no mans land‘ have not seen any benefits, financially or otherwise, over the past two years.
Now with North Tipperary Fianna Fáil TD Máire Hoctor revealing this week that she was very disillusioned by the performance of Taoiseach Brian Cowen and would be prepared to vote for her fellow Tipperary native, Mary Hanafin to take over as leader of the party, we can expect no ‘manna from heaven‘, or even a bit of tarmac, for that matter, from this quarter either. She, herself, admits that Brian Cowan even forgot she existed, failing to inform her of the visit by the Minister for Trade Enterprise and Innovation Batt O’Keeffe, to Thurles last July, to open a €3.5m business park in the town, thus afforded Mr Lowry the opportunity to pretend he delivered that project for North Tipperary on his own.
Thurles Chamber of Commerce seem to have emigrated and Thurles Urban District Councillors have not been heard from, since August, when dog poo, boy racers and attempts to meet with the IMF were high on their agenda. As for North Tipp County Council, well who knows where they have gone to ground, hopefully not into one of our numerous potholes.
Meanwhile, expect to spend an extra hour queuing in traffic as you attempt to enter Thurles this Christmas period, to collect your children from local schools.
My conclusion is that all our expensive leadership in North Tipperary has hibernated for the Winter and hopefully someone will waken them up prior to the January 2011 General Election.
In the meanwhile, do take care of those vehicle tyres, as you attempt to manoeuvre around the numerous potholes on our rural roads.
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