Evening Blog - 07 December 2010

22:35 Remember that Gavan Titley, late of this parish, is a guest on tonight's edition of Tonight with Vincent Browne, later on TV3. I'll be back at 7am to earwig in on more RTE and Newstalk post-budget myths. I'll leave you with this from tonight's support liveblogger, Mary Gilmartin:

'What we need now is hope' - Danny McCoy from IBEC on Prime Time. Hope that the minimum wage might be reduced even further? He's spouting the same old story about 'our' lack of competitiveness, a myth well debunked by Proinnsias Breathnach on Ireland after Nama in February. http://irelandafternama.wordpress.com/2010/02/15/competitiveness-myths-unsupported-by-the-evidence/ Maybe Danny  was too busy lobbying on the minimum wage over the past few months to acquaint himself with some uncomfortable facts.

Hey minister, I'd like to "hit the rich".

22:20 Danny McCoy (former ESRI, remember) believes we are poised for growth and Jack O'Connor is back on to him about. Danny talks about scare tactics as if we all knew what they were. "These are the facts, Jack" - that's capitalism for Godwin's law, that is. And who made Richard Curran, a journalist, a referee?

I've posted some photos of tonight's demonstration here.

22:10 We're going back to 2005/6 levels says the man in charge of the State's finances. Mary Gilmartin's back:

Lenihan on Prime Time: 'no-one over 66 is affected'. Exactly how do you work that out? Not affected by the drop in funding for carers, health care, children? What about the grandparents caring for grandchildren in the absence of affordable childcare (now to be made even less affordable through the taxation of employer-provided childcare)?

Additionally, she's pointed out that clearing tax credits on university fees means that any vaunted 'smart economy' will have to wait another while, or at least until the Greens get back into government. That hits hard, personally, I'm a registered PhD student.

Primetime again, Richard Curran: detached??? Oh....right.....THAT kind of detached. Anyone out there listening to RTE Radio's Late Debate might email us at budgetjam towers? The Analysis Monkeys (R) haven't got enough to do tonight.

22:05 Lenihan effectively says that if we have higher tax for skilled people, they will emigrate. All this RTE craic is masking the real anger as well as the alternatives. There are no other voices in this room. As I type I see the panel of four women on a recent edition of Tonight with Vinnie B. And why again are O Caolain, Burton and others not in this farcical passing of a debate? Does that matter anyway?

22:03: I see Michael Noonan has chosen to play the good cop tonight on RTE's primetime. "Everyone's gonna be hit hard" apparently. But Mary Gilmartin emails in:

Donall Gannon from KPMG on Prime Time showing just how regressive this budget this is. He says a single person on the minimum wage will have a 2156 euro reduction in their annual income
married couple, 4 children, one income of 250000 euro will pay 3871 more a year
married couple, 4 children, on job seekers allowance will lose 1292 a year

22:00 Wills Duffy tweets:

There is only one question on primetime ~ How is it that the banking fcukup is been passed onto the average citizen?????

And via Miriam:

: Someone on the min wage loses over 2K a year, more than someone on 80K - that's mental

21:55 There's the minister for 'social protection' O Cuiv talking about the government not having any choices. You should be reading our blog Eamon. And we're back: KPMG-man going through those neutral, objective facts and figures that 'hide' reductions. He's "not here to apologise for the minister" but then apologises for the minister.

21:50 Michael Burke over at the Gruaniad writes:

The Dublin government has yet to explain why repeating the policy will yield a different result this time – the underlying deficit having almost doubled following its desolation of the public sector.

Not sure why RTE Primetime is making a distinction between 'protestors' outside the Dail and 'interested parties' inside Buswell's just now. I thought we were all in this together?

21:45 Frances has been on to us with OPEN's press release from earlier:

Most Lone Parents will lose out by €530 a year as result of Budget 2011 cuts

In one fell blow this afternoon, Minister Brian Lenihan has managed to squeeze €530 from some of the poorest people in this State. 

“Children growing up in One Parent families have been acknowledged in several studies as those most likely to be either living in poverty or at risk of living in poverty.” said Frances Byrne, Director of OPEN.

“It beggars belief that those already acknowledged as among the poorest in the country would be targeted specifically in this budget. Lone parent families who are already struggling to get by will now find themselves with €530 less money a year. ”

21:25 A selection of tweets from the #budgetjam stream:

Gerry Casey: @ What inspires him to target the poor & most vulnerable to bail out & preserve lifestyle of wealthy?

David: "Bringing people into the tax net" suggests low income earners don't pay taxes ??

Mick Fealty: RT @ Euro crisis: “So something is afoot.”

Eoin O Brion: €300million cut from social housing budget at a time when housing waiting lists soar. A massive 36% cut!

Jennifer Collins: "Abolish or restrict many tax reliefs that higher earners use to shelter income unfairly:"Should this not have been done before?

Red Mum: RT @ "pity during the boom Govt didn't bring up standards of school buildings, like daughters school, still in prefabs"

21:20 The European Anti Poverty Network and OPEN react to today's bludget, I mean budget. The EAPN is as yet not available from their site:

Government needs to publish detailed report on poverty impact of Budget 2011

Tuesday , 7th December: The Government needs to publish a detailed report on the poverty impact of Budget 2011 which it is committed to carry out in its own National Action Plan for Social Inclusion. This is the same Plan which commits to eradicating consistent poverty by 2016 but the measures released this afternoon by the Government will go a long way towards driving more people deeper into poverty.

Paul Ginnell, Policy and Support Worker with EAPN Ireland, stated that 'while we know that the measures announced today will substantially increase poverty in the country we are demanding that the Government produce a detailed poverty impact assessment to explain the real impact of the decisions the Minister for Finance announced today. All they have published so far is a brief statement justifying what they had already decided to do'.

Budget 2011 includes increased tax on those on lower incomes, a reduction of €10 per week in all welfare payments apart from the state pension and a reduction of Child benefits by €10 per month with an additional cut of €10 for a third child. Also signalled is the €1 reduction in the minimum wage. All of these measures, alongside cuts to essential services have a direct impact on the most vulnerable which the Government has stated it is committed to protecting.

Statistics released last week by the Central Statistics Office ( CSO) for 2009 show that levels of consistent poverty rose from 4.2% in 2008 to 5.5% while the numbers unable to afford basic requirements went up by 25%.  This is even before the impact of cuts in Budget 2010 are taken into account. In addition to this CSO data shows that according to the Consumer Price Indexprices have risen by 2% in 2010. In light of these statistics the Government’s Budget will result in even greater poverty for people.

 Mr Ginnell concluded that 'as we come to the end of the 2010 European Year Against Poverty and Social Exclusion we must question the type of society that we are to become where even more people are being forced to live on the very margins of society. Alternatives proposed by organisations such as the Community Platform, TASC ,Claiming our Future and UNITE have been ignored'.

21:13 Earlier tonight, Donal Buckley sent in some reaction to Brian's deflationary thingy this afternoon:

As an example of how damaging dynastic political cronyism is, Lenihan  is the best example.

His intellectual ability is so weak that he argues that “we have a much higher social welfare payments system than England”.

This intellectual weakness is highlighted by his inability to understand what an own goal this statement is.

It follows that a comparison with England is also relevant to Ministerial and higher civil servant pay.

Or do we only compare the  Irish poor with the poor in other countries.

Mr Lenihan has argued for comparison with England therefore Ministers and higher civil service pay rates in Ireland are multiples of their English counterparts.

This is calculated on a per capita representation by elected members .

And this from The Journal. That's me sorted then.

A 50% reduction in Irish politicians pay and perks is proportional adjustment.

 

Civil service higher pay could be reduced by more ( on the basis that reward for efficiency would require deductions for inefficiency.)

 

Starting with the Secretary General of the Dept of Finance  who true to form gets it wrong again and again.

 

Benchmarking against European averages is the only way to make the greed a European standard.

 

21:10 Tried to do too much there I think. One more time. Some reaction to today's teach-ins held in banks on university campuses across Dublin earlier today:

Staff and students gathered at AIB at DCU for a budget day teach-in. Academics
speaking were: Michael Cronin, Marnie Holborow, Helena Sheehan, Paschal Preston.
They spoke of the nature of the crisis and the range of possible responses.
A number of students spoke of the threat to their own futures and their campaigns
tocontest this.

Professor Helena Sheehan
Dublin City University

 

Yep, ours was fun, Colin was storming.

Gav (NUIM)

 

Good turnout here at DCU and interesting mixture of staff and students. I'll see what I can do about getting photographs.

Michael Cronin (DCU)

Well about those photos, can I suggest people email them to my personal address and I can place them in a set on flickr?

Tags: 
CrisisJam