Budget 2009 revisted
Comments(6)
I see Fianna Fáil are ‘revisiting’ the whole Medical Card issue …. pity they didn’t think it through before they caused angst amongst the senior citizens of our country.
By all means …. means test it … but raise the threshold so that the middle income pensioners can have a reasonable standard of living.
My own father, having worked for almost 45 years, survives on a reduced contributory pension and a state pension. He faces an annual bill of €2,000 approx for medicines etc.
My uncle (his brother) is in his mid eighties, has a state pension (no other pension), and he faces the loss of his medical card ~ all because he will receive the €7 increase in his pension and has the additional €10 because he is over eighty years old. Having had a quadruple bypass he requires a multitude of pills and elixirs.
Neither he nor my father are pensioners with extraordinary wealth, they worked hard all their lives, saved a little, they don’t have any property from which they can earn additional income. They survive comfortably. To take away their medical cards would cause them to visit the doctor less and take short cuts with their health.
This budget was too general in its approach. Those who made fortunes from the ‘Celtic Tiger’ should have been hit the hardest. I never made a fortune from the ‘Celtic Tiger’, I just earned my wage and paid my taxes. I didn’t buy a second property. Yet … I’m going to be charged a 1% levy on my earnings … as I said before I’ll grin and bear it …. but it will really annoy me if they hit me again/hit me for more.
Get it right Cowen …. your fat cat friends are the ones who should be paying …. get after them!
The €10 tax of flights doesn’t apply to the Denis O’Brien’s of our country who own their own private planes …. what injustice. He and his cohorts don’t even reside in our country for tax purposes. Even U2 have their money stashed in a tax haven. Bono has some cheek to come out procrastinating about the third world countries and how we should be doing more for them. Show the way Bono …. donate your millions to the world’s poor and hungry. Get your pal Geldof to do the same.
Spoke to a coouple the other evening that are off to New Zealand to give living there a lash for a year. Presumably they will send a letter to FF saying “Fuck you and your levy”
They don’t seem to have thought this through very well! Everyone here has a medicare card. Pensioners can also be eligible for a Commonwealth Senior’s Health Card that offers discounts for prescriptions and services. It’s means tested but the income threshold is reasonable. Seems ridiculous when ireland was the first to guarantee bank deposits yet they are refusing necessary medical care to those who have contributed to their coffers for so long. Go over to Stephs, there’s a rally on Saturday re the health card issue.
There’s more to it than just the medical card issue. At the same time they are trying to rob little old ladies, they are trying to line the pockets of Tom Parlon and the builders by going into the subprime mortgage business. See http://www.homechoiceloan.ie/ for details.
Fat cats get fatter …. who said the day of the ‘brown envelope’ was over?
Far from it ….
Tom Parlon …. another shyster!
Paddy,
As regards Denis O’Brien, Bono and Sir Bob…
I think you’ll find that they are donating millions to third world countries, they just don’t shout about it.
I wish they’d consider the financial crisis in Ireland and give us a dig-out instead of allowing those fools in Government to mug the elderly.
Steph ~ With regard to the three aforementioned stooges …. they can keep their dosh, send it to the third world or not ….. I don’t really care.
The only problem I have with them is that they have no right to ask me to support others with the big fat wallets they maintain.
I think it’s also a ‘bit rich’ (pardon the pun) … for people like Bono to preach how we should donate our P.A.Y.E. cash when he has dumped his money into a foreign tax haven …. so that he can keep more than he should as an Irish ‘resident’.
It’s an awful pity he and Mr. O’Brien don’t follow their tax havened money in their private planes …. they wouldn’t even have to pay the €10 taxation charge on their flights!
As long as our country continues to treat the rich more favourably than the rest of us plebs we ain’t got a hope for an equitable playing pitch in this fair country of ours.