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Just getting to listen to this years ‘brutal budget’ and I definately don’t think its geared towards working families or familes with one/two parents out of work due to lack of jobs at present.
I feel families on social welfare are going to be hard hit. With a 4% reduction in social welfare payments & loosing child benefit….that equates to a lot of money. Know there is an extra €40 in there for people on long term unemployement payments (15mths minimum) getting fuel allowance. But that doesnt go to all the families out there not out of work 15mths and yet still struggling with fuel/heating bills this winter or people on FAS training courses (getting same money as those on jobseekers payment) but who don’t quality for Fuel Allowance as they are not termed ‘unemployed’. I feel many families on social welfare will be in severe financial difficulty trying to pay electricity/heating bills this winter. A family with one person out of work and claiming half rate for 3 children will loose 4% or €9.63 per week on jobseekers benefit, equating to a loss, including child benefit reductions of €81.73 per month. People claiming for a dependent adult will loose more. How can people on low payments loose this amount and still have to pay mortgages, living costs etc. when we know so many people are in serious arrears with mortgages and bills already. (I acknowledge this is also true for families with one/two working).
Minister Hanafin was talking on Q102 radio Scott Williams show. This is what one of our ‘ministers’ had to say …..Scott asked her " This budget today, do you feel the burden has been spread fairly everywhere?" She replied " I believe it has and its a burden everyone is paying, other than people who are on the minimum wage, who are outside the tax net and people who are dependent on the old age pension, so those 2 groups are protected and everybody else, proportionality is paying and there is no doubt about it that the people who can pay more are paying more’
Made me so angry. People on minimum pay are loosing €1 per hour or €40 on a weeks work. This equates to a 11.5% cut on previous basic minimum pay wages. And this doesn’t take into account the new universal social charge. A big cut for someone who isn’t ‘paying’ or shouldering the burden.
As for cutting child benefit, so many working parents depend on extras like this to contribute to childcare costs and our government doesn’t provide much in the line of state run childcare facilities and most people are paying for private childcare to enable them to work. Our government has to decide, once and for all, is it going to support working parents by paying child benefit to help with childcare costs or is it going to cut child benefit and invest in state funded childcare for parents instead . They gave, then took away, the early childcare supplement. They introduced the ECCE Scheme but its only for 1yr, for a certain age group, and doesnt fund full-time care by any standards. I don’t believe this government are supporting working parents. They are creating a culture where people are fearful of having children due to childcare costs when wages are being cut and taxes increasing. Targeting the 3rd child in the child benefit cuts for a €20 cut instead of €10 for 1st, 2nd, 4th, 5th etc. is saying it all…this is what our country thinks of children and families.
Out of interest the average number of children per family has fallen from 2.2 in 1981 to 1.6 in 2002. Not sure what it is now in 2010 but sure its lower still. Wonder, for some people, do they actually want smaller families or is it the fear of not being able to provide financially (childcare/education etc.) for more than 1 or 2 children that is the biggest deciding factor.
fihttp://www.socialinclusion.ie/documen … rtrait.pdfNot impressed with this budget for working families, familes on low income, and familes on social welfare (due to lack of jobs).
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An interesting read, A Social Portrait on Children in Ireland.
http://www.socialinclusion.ie/documents … rtrait.pdf
——————————————————————————————-Well, its out now so we can stop speculating and damn was it harsh. No wonder there were so many protests outside the Dail during and after.
Sure, the government took a few pay cuts themselves (Brian Cowen gets paid more than Barack Obama, so of course he deserves a pay cut!!) but they are still on massive salaries with cushy pensions.
The hard working gardai and nurses are having their pensions slashed again while the private consultants are generally being left alone
Seemingly, according to one financial analyst this evening this is one clear example of how wrong they got it:
A family with an income of 200K will be down around 3,500 euro per year……But a family who is on 40K will be down around 2,400 euro a year.
So once again, the rich get off lightly and the average, middle income and low income families, will be the ones paying for the mess the bankers and government created.
The cut to the minimum wage is especially disheartening and why would there be an extra 4 cents added to every litre of petrol and 2 cents on diesel but no increase on cigarettes or alcohol?
Are we a really a nation that needs to drink and smoke more than we need to put fuel into our cars.
The 10 euro off each child per month on children’s allowance I can just about live with but an extra 10 euro off for the third child is mean and unnecessary. Don’t they know many people are using the children’s allowance to help pay bills and mortgages???
How the hell did they come up with this budget? Idiots!! 🙄
Stil trying to figure the consequences out for me & my family. With all this renaming of levies etc, I’m a bit bamboozled
When they do the examples on the tv, is that what we are going to be down gross or net??
With (soon, please God) three kids & one regular earner, we certainly won’t be partying….
Agree about the booze & fags. Seriously whack a tax on them rather than on fuel (which we all need).
But the minimum wage business? That’s not really part of the budget. Correct me if I’m wrong: that means that it is now legal to pay someone a euro less an hour, but it doesn’t automtaically mean that everyone on the minimum wage is going to have their pay slashed, does it? That depends on the employers, doesn’t it?? Or am I missing something…. Hubby was on just over minimum wage last job so am wondering….
i am on one family and 46 euro a month cut on my money i definitely wont be able to get have me own house know or go on holiday anytime soon i would to treatmy daughter to a nice holiday or a house were she actually has her own room and space to play . i have spent the last 3 years looking for a job and i am just giving up now.
Havent had a good look at the budget, but the petrol would make a good few euros difference a week here, my dh took 15k pay cut this year… so we had to cut back to find that money, now the budget!!
Thought the CB would have been hit harder tbh, The TD’s did take cuts but not massive ones, could have been alot more.
Again the lower paid and the middle earners carry the load
Pookie they said if you one minium then that your pay in your contract (thats how away with the birds they are) i dont know anyone on min wage with a contract… its new workers into the work force!!! Load of crap
€7.65 an hour for min pay jobs. 40hrs=€306. Then take out car costs/petrol if traveling a distance to work like so many do now. Then the new social payment has to be deducted also. And childcare costs if you have children and are working. Doesn’t leave very much at all out of a weeks pay…..how will people survive on this min pay. May be okay, being optimistic for younger people or people with no children. But for families with people unemployed right now the prospects of min pay jobs are not all that.
Mummy i think your right minium pay is okay if your 18, different story if you 28!
My dh has been working up in T2 at Dublin Airport for the past few years, they are running behind so still in working, my dh was told 2 weeks ago the Brian Cowen was coming to open the Terminal, they were told to take the day off WITHOUT PAY!!!!! They all kicked up a fuss but the boss who is a multi multi millionare (santa got him a helicopter last xmas so no recession for him) told them "sure your the lucky ones you still have jobs"
So workers rights have gone out the window too
Love the way they work out how it will hit a family of 4 or a single person, but dont factor petrol to work (if you still have one) everyone commutes now days and 4c per ltr is huge!!! Plus the VAT rate going up, carbon taxes all the little things that just add up and up and up!!!
Think it will be back to the days when we were kids, when you got 1 packet of biscuits, some miwadi and some crisps…. and that was it, no sweets or junk in the shopping etcTBH i think it could have been alot worse for us all. Thankfully child benefit wasnt slashed and property taxes werent imposed on our houses. Brian Lenehan was right not to tax drink or fags, he knew that would send people over the border to buy not only their fags and drink but their household weekly shop also. I know we will be hit but isnt that what budgets are all about . I do however feel sorry for the unemployed but there are alot of "unemployed" who are just skimming the system with their 42" plasmas etc…they are part of society too and need to contribute 😯 Did we really expect anything more in this budget …i for one am glad we got away as lightly as we did seeing as the economy is virtually at collapse 😕
I honestly think we got away lightly! Well this year anyway, we have another 3 budgets to come with more cuts.
A family with an income of 200K will be down around 3,500 euro per year……But a family who is on 40K will be down around 2,400 euro a year.
This is where misconception comes into play tho honestly. A person earning 200k will be paying tax on 41% + all the other levies whereas the 40K family are only on the 20% tax rate so its all proportionate if you work out the figuires correctly.I only work part time and have therefore never paid income tax but now I will with the Universal charge they introduced. To be honest with the amount that will be taken from me weekly I can live with if it gets the country back on its feet.
Overall Ill be down 62 e a month taking all the cuts into considertaion. Its liveable for me. Obviously not ideal but sure what can be done about it.We need to get this country back on track and moaning and groaning about it all wont help.
Hopefully with the new stamp duty rate (altho not great for FTB’s) might get people buying again which in turn will create jobs and money for the economy.you can only cut someones wages if by agreement (well supposedly) We have a pay cut in here and all staff had to agree before we could proceed or we would have ended up with unions in etc…
If someone is already working on the min wage i believe you can’t just cut their wages BUT anyone starting employment can be started on the lower new min wages? = think i’m right.
I thought it’dbe worse but in saying that we’ll be down a good bit a month and i do think it’s the lower/middle earning families that are hit an awful lot more , glad the xmas shopping is done!Your right munch, you cant just have your wages cut BY YOUR EMPLOYER!!! However with tax cuts etc you can. The new minimum wage is for new entrants only and even then employers can up it, its just a starting point.
Its not great for people who will be offered a job on this money as JS will still work out better off (assuming it a 20 hour a week job) and at that the niversal charge will kick in as its above 4k a year …….so the dole is still just as appealing to people as it ever was………..they need to do something about this asap.This budget did nothing to empower women and helpthem back to work or education. It is only ensuring that we women are reverted back to 1940/50’s when it was a woman place to stay at home and look after our husbands and children (if you can afford to have any that is) and god forbid a woman wanted a career.
The budget has done nothing to create employment. It did nothing to improve our outlandish childcare system and their enormous fees. It did nothing to help upskill people. All it did was make a bad situation worse.
Women are finding it harder and harder to return to work after the birth of a baby as childcare costs are way out of line with of european neighbours. Resulting in women depending on their partner for financial support, this added pressure on relationships does have a ripple effect and leads to all sorts of problems. Women needed to be empowered, they needed to be given choice, they needed to be counted as people worthy of helping this country get back on its feet. But the government didnt do that. They cut child benefits, they cut services, they made no improvments to the privately run childcare system and most of all they made our children pay for their mistakes.
I am a working mum, like so many of you out there with huge childcare bills and I do understand that many women chose to stay at home with the families but for all the women out there who thought I will stay at home while the children are small and return to work when they head off to school, you are the forgotten people, what did this government do to provide you with the supports you may need to head back into the work place. Nothing.RANT OVER.
The following shows how mature students who once qualified for non-adjacent grant are now excempt from it. Know someone, a mature student with a child, who lives a good distance away from college and it helped keep car/petrol going. Now she won’t qualify and will be much harder to finish college. In 2nd year only. Very sneaky to bring it in this way……people have to finish college or else its a waste of 2yrs training. 😡
http://www.budget.gov.ie/budgets/2011/D … mbined.pdf
Student Support Scheme – 4% reduction in rates of
grant, consistent with the % reduction in all DSP
working-age payments; limit mature students benefits
to those payable to ordinary students; and reduce
proportion of students qualifying for the non-adjacent
rate by changing qualifying criteria from 24km to
45km.
?/agree with snowdrop…childcare is the big issue here for many women as in so many homes (not all) its the women who give up work when childcare costs spiral. I’ve been on both ends , a working mum of 4 children, who gave up work, (due to not earning enough to pay childcare on its own even) and now a childminder.
Most people have to use private childcare which now receives no funding at all from gov. There used to be funding for community creches to open etc. but all gone now. We only have what is in place now. Childcare are all for profit businesses not the fault of the childcare providers who are not charities and work to earn a living. But community creches are run on a not for profit basis, ensuring quality and cost efficiency. However, this can only be done with grant support. It would be one very good way of upskilling people to work in quality childcare settings (those who enjoy this work) at the same time providing affordable childcare to allow parents to work or return to education. I think affordable childcare is possible for this gov to put in place, especially now, with so many out of work looking for jobs. Its a win, win situation. There will always be a demand for private childcare but maybe this could also be provided in a better way with more gov. support not just the ECCE scheme. Improved childcare also improves moral I feel as its one of the biggest emotional and financial concerns of working parents. Its awful when a woman gives up work not through choice but through literally not earning enough to pay childcare costs….women should be able to choose to have children. People on benefit systems get extras every time they have another child as all payments are linked to family size…not true for regular workers.agree with snowdrop…childcare is the big issue here for many women as in so many homes (not all) its the women who give up work when childcare costs spiral. I’ve been on both ends , a working mum of 4 children, who gave up work, (due to not earning enough to pay childcare on its own even) and now a childminder.
Most people have to use private childcare which now receives no funding at all from gov. There used to be funding for community creches to open etc. but all gone now. We only have what is in place now. Childcare are all for profit businesses not the fault of the childcare providers who are not charities and work to earn a living. But community creches are run on a not for profit basis, ensuring quality and cost efficiency. However, this can only be done with grant support. It would be one very goodway of upskilling people to work in quality childcare settings (those who enjoy this work) at the same time providing affordable childcare to allow parents to work or return to education. I think affordable childcare is possible for this gov to put in place, especially now, with so many out of work looking for jobs. Its a win, win situation. There will always be a demand for private childcare but maybe this could also be provided in a better way with more gov. support not just the ECCE scheme. Improved childcare also improves moral I feel as its one of the biggest emotional and financial concerns of working parents. Its awful when a woman gives up work not through choice but through literally not earning enough to pay childcare costs….women should be able to choose to have children. People on benefit systems get extras every time they have another child as all payments are linked to family size…not true for regular workers.
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