Scairbh
Na
gCaorach
EMYVALE
Budget 2010 and Your Health.
The 2011 Budget announced yesterday was the ‘toughest’ in the history of this state. Why? – because our Government steered this country into overwhelming debt and now outsiders are telling us what to do. The Government was taking instructions from ‘experts’ as to how to run this country and look where they have landed us. They were also being advised by ‘experts’ in health and look where that has got us. During my time with the Monaghan Hospital Alliance I kept telling the public that the Government was listening to the wrong ‘experts’ and bringing in the wrong type of reforms but not enough people believed me. Now we all pay the penalty. We are half way into their flawed reforms and we have no money to either go forward or to return to where we were and start with reforms which will work.
The cuts in the Health Service will affect everyone but the lower paid in particular. The Prescription charge removes money from the pockets of Card holders; the lowering of GP fees for cards holders means that there will be certain services not available to card holders in future and will increase the cost for private patients; the increase in charges for private patients in public hospitals will increase the cost of Health Insurance and will reduce income for public hospitals; the lowering of the basic wage, the increase in taxes, reduction in child benefits, the increase in fuel charges, the added costs for services will all mean that we will not be able to afford health insurance or to pay for health services.
These cuts will not only effect the people directly but indirectly but indirectly as well as Health Insurance will be hit with added costs which will be passed on to the public. Allocations to hospitals will be reduced and allocations to all other services will also see a reduction in the amount given to them to provide the services and all the while the numbers needing the services increases. Guess who will suffer – the patients even though our Ministers and Government keep telling us that frontline services will not be affected. The result of all this will be that people will delay going to the GP or to a hospital for tests but then it will cost much more to treat the complaint and will possibly be too late for some.
Yes, Mary Harney and this Government has landed us in deep trouble and they will be able to walk away with big hand-outs and huge pensions and leave the rest of us to suffer the pain for their extravagance and greed. How do we make them pay for what they have done and what they have failed to do and how do we ensure that they carry an equal share of the burden?
It was interesting to learn on Vincent Browne programme that Tds have had an increase of over €900 weekly between 1985 and 2010 while the man on the average industrial wage received an increase of about €150 in that same period. Now this budget cuts the pay of the man on industrial wage while the TD is left untouched. Is that ‘fair or what’?
The Income levy and the Health levy and the PRSI are all being lumped together and about 7% will be taken off every cent we earn. Will this apply to TD’s? However if one adds up all the taxes we pay - from income tax to levies, from fuel tax to VRT, from VAT to car tax, from road tolls to TV licences, from voluntary donations to charity fund raising for work that should be funded by Government there is little left of our wages and they are now trying to get that little from us too because they are going to penalise us for saving money by charging higher dirt tax.
Now we hear that AIB, a bank we own and to which we have given billions and are expected to give further billions, are paying over 2,000 of their staff bonuses for the past year totally about €40 million. This works out at about €16,000 to each of the workers. This is a year’s salary for many and it is being given as a bonus by a bank we are bailing out - and we, the Irish softies, sit back and complain but do nothing to stop it.