Austerity and the Verdict of the Squeezed Middle people of Ireland
Angry voters want their money back and tell Noonan to slash taxes USC now toxic as hated water charges.
Angry voters are demanding their money back after eight years of hard austerity,
The recent Sunday Independent/Millward Brown opinion poll has found.
The economic recovery has so far failed to clearly boost the Government’s standing with the electorate, according to the poll.
Dissatisfaction with the Coalition has actually increased a little at a time of higher than expected economic growth.
Exchequer returns for the last three months show €545m more tax than anticipated has been collected.
Now voters are demanding a financial dividend after almost a decade of increased taxes and charges.
With the economic recovery taking hold, a clear message in the poll is that people want more money in their pockets.
The Government’s performance has satisfied one-in-four, a three-point increase drawn from the undecided, but the level of dissatisfaction has also increased a point to 69%.
The poll was conducted in 971 interviews between March 24 and April 2. Among the key findings are that the Universal Social Charge (USC) is hated as much as water charges.
Voters want austerity taxes and charges, such as the USC and water charges, to be cut first ahead of the Coalition’s preferred option to reduce income tax. The poll has also found demand for pay hikes has increased, with a reversal of wage cuts in the private sector being favoured over the public sector.
After undecided voters (20%) are excluded, the state of the parties is: Fine Gael (25%) unchanged; Sinn Fein (24%) down two points; Fianna Fail (19%) unchanged; Labour (8%) up two points; Greens (3%) up two points; Independents/others (20%) down three points. Sinn Fein’s fall in support confirms findings in other polls and shows the party has been damaged by recent scandals related to child sex abuse.
The level of public disillusionment in general is illustrated by an increased level of dissatisfaction with all party leaders.
Although satisfaction with the Government (26%) has improved somewhat, the level of dissatisfaction has also increased, up a point to 69%, the same level as a year ago and within the margin of error from two years.
Today’s poll will add to the pressure on Finance Minister Michael Noonan after a week which saw a surge in anger at the banks’ imposition of high mortgage variable interest rates and industrial action on zero-hour contracts.
The average variable mortgage rate for new customers in Ireland is 4.2%, compared with a rate of 2.09% in the rest of the Eurozone.
This means the holder of a €200,000 mortgage here is paying €350 a month more than mortgage holders in Europe. The Coalition’s economic Spring Statement was initially scheduled for April 21, but is to be delivered on April 28 instead at the insistence of Labour, which wants to concentrate on the mortgage arrears crisis first.
The Coalition intends to use the statement to outline a five-year tax reform plan to secure a second term after the Budget in October.
However, today’s poll illustrates the level of voter expectation with which the Coalition must now contend.
The poll finds support for wage hikes has increased for both the private and public sectors but that voters still believe the public sector may have to wait.
Asked if there had been sufficient economic improvement to merit wage increases in the private sector, 45% said no (up one point) but 43% said yes (up five points) while 12% did not know (down six points).
Half of voters (50%), down one point, did not believe there should be public sector pay increases, while 37% (up six points) believed there should and 12% (down six points) did not know.
If exchequer money is to be given back, 61% said water charges should be reduced; 60pc said USC should be cut; 54% said reduce income tax; 47% want a cut to property tax; and 38% wanted PRSI reduced.
Dissatisfaction with all the party leaders has also increased: Enda Kenny (67%) up three points; Joan Burton (65%) up four points; Micheal Martin (57%) up eight points; Gerry Adams (56%) up six points.
Renua Ireland leader Lucinda Creighton has recorded a satisfaction rating of 20% and dissatisfaction of 44%; while 36% said they did not know.
The Irish government might cap the Property Tax?
The Tánaiste says that there has to be a reaction to rising property prices.
The Irish Government could consider capping the amount payable in Property Tax.
Speaking at a 1916 commemoration today, Tánaiste Joan Burton said that the government was “aware that house valuations are rising steeply” in parts of the country.
She said that the government is awaiting a new report and will act on it.
The tax is currently based on property valuations as of 1 May 2013, but that will be recalculated next May, with some householders potentially hit for €180 or €270 more from 2017 on.
Today’s Sunday Times reports that Finance Minister Michael Noonan told the Fine Gael party that it would be “absolute madness” to allow those whose property prices were inflating to be hit for bigger bills.
Already, over 7,000 properties have had their tax revised upwards.
It’s now time for a new Proclamation?
As the Centenary of the 1916 Rising draws near, we invite six people – a journalist, an artist, activists and economists – to write a new Proclamation for today’s Ireland
The Proclamation of 1916 is among Ireland’s best known historical documents. Almost 100 years after its publication, it continues to exercise a profound effect on the Irish imagination. In some ways it has not dated but, 99 years on, does it work for 21st-century Ireland?
The Irish Times has asked six people – journalist Fintan O’Toole; disability activist Joanne O’Riordan; theatre maker Grace Dyas, environmentalist Oisin Coghlan; economist Constantin Gurdgiev; and author Gerard O’Neill – to compose new proclamations for today’s Ireland.
We’ve borrowed the idea from the official State Centenary Programme for 2016, launched this week. Its “Proclamation for a New Generation” project begins in schools in the next academic year, and will invite primary and secondary students to write a new proclamation that reflects the “values and aspirations of the generation of 2016”.
Seriously ill man traveled on an icebreaker, through rough seas for help
The Aurora Australis at anchor at Davis station
A seriously ill man reached an Australian hospital more than two weeks after he suffered a medical emergency at a remote Antarctic base.
The patient was admitted to hospital in Hobart, Australia’s mostly southerly city.
He had travelled aboard an icebreaker 3,000 miles through rough and ice-jammed seas from Australia’s Davis Station on the coast of Princess Elizabeth Land.
The Australian Antarctic Division’s chief medical officer Jeff Ayton said the patient was transferred by ambulance from the icebreaker, Aurora Australis, to the Royal Hobart Hospital where he remained in serious but stable condition.
“He will require ongoing medical treatment, but we are very pleased he has travelled well over the past couple of weeks and his condition has not deteriorated,” Mr Ayton said.
The authorities have released no personal details about the man, who is a tradesman. They have not revealed the nature of his medical emergency, other than to say it was not the result of an accident.
The man arrived at the Australian base in November and was supposed to spend the approaching southern winter there.
He became ill on March 18 only days after the Aurora Australis had resupplied the station and begun its voyage back to Hobart.
When the icebreaker returned to the station, officials had to wait for a break in snow showers so that the patient could be flown across sea ice on March 22.
The icebreaker rolled heavily in swells up to 23ft and winds gusting at 70mph while navigating the treacherous Antarctic Ocean toward Hobart.
The patient was cared for by the ship’s doctor with the help of distant specialists using telecommunications equipment designed for remote medical examinations.
Small farmers under threat from falling food prices & Euro red tape
Traditional British farming will soon be replaced by international investors and creation of mega farms to feed China.
Centuries of traditional small family farming in Britain is under threat from a collapse in the price of food and European red tape, industry leaders have warned.
David Handley, chairman of the lobby group Farmers for Action said: “If you look at the exodus now from the industry, the small British tenant farmer is under threat. Tenant dairy farmers like ourselves are being crucified at the moment.”
Dairy prices in the UK have hit multi-year lows as China’s softening demand for milk and a Russian embargo on European imports sends shock waves through the British farming industry.
According to Mr Handley, the collapse in prices has left many farmers who were already operating on tight margins in financial difficulty.
He claims that for many farmers, a litre of milk is now costing more to produce than it is to sell to a commercial buyer. International milk prices as measured by the GlobalDairyTrade index fell by 48% and the market has shown little sign of recovery since.
Milk is now cheaper to buy than bottled water due to a fierce supermarket price war, recent figures showed.
When bought in a four-pint bottle, the price per litre of milk has dipped to 43p, compared with 44p for bottled still water.
In January, Asda cut the price of four pints of own- Label milk from £1 to 89p.
A collapse in profits could see many small farmers giving up the occupation altogether, either selling their farms or handing the keys back to landowners in a shift that could end centuries of tradition in the countryside.
There are around 10,000 dairy farmers left in England and Wales, half the number they were in 2002. That could fall to 5,000 in the next 10 years, the National Farmers Union (NFU) has warned.
Many experts expect traditional, small family-run British farms to be replaced by bigger operations owned and managed by large investors. “It’s part of a process of continuing evolution in the agricultural industry,” said Phil Bicknell, head of food and farming at the NFU.
“The trend is for farms to get bigger. If you want to make more you have got to farm a bigger area.”
Last month, the NFU warned that Britain’s food security was in danger and that just 53pc of the nation’s food needs will be produced from domestic farms by 2040.
Farming continues to make an important contribution to the UK economy, bringing in more than £8bn last year. Although George Osborne, the Chancellor, offered British farmers some relief in the Budget, Mr Bicknell said that the UK lacks a clear “vision for agriculture”.
Farmers will now be able to average profits for tax purposes over five years, up from the current two years, to counter volatile commodity markets.
Allan Wilkinson, HSBC Bank’s head of agriculture, has also warned that average farm incomes in the UK will drop this year amid a global oversupply of food and softer demand in Asia. British farmers have been hit by falling international food prices and the ban on dairy, meat and fish exports to Russia, which came into force last year.
“Incomes will fall this year,” said Mr Wilkinson. “The impact of the struggling pound is a bigger challenge than Russia because so much of UK farming revenues are from Europe.”
Last week, the European Milk Board (EMB) warned that dairy farmers can expect a severe loss in market power, plus chronic milk price slumps as the European milk quota system came to an end last Tuesday.
The EMB said that dairy farmers across the EU will step up production, driving down prices as producers look to offload their supplies.
Farm gate food prices have fallen to the lowest level recorded in the past five years according to the United Nations (UN), while the pound has appreciated by more than 12% against the euro over the past year.
HAVE SCIENTISTS FINALLY FOUND PROOF OF BIGFOOT?
A leading genetecist claims a towering woman named Zana (artist’s representation) who lived in 19th Century Russia – and appeared to be ‘half human, half ape’ – could have been the fabled yeti
Over the centuries the legend of North America’s Bigfoot and the Hemolayan Yeti have continued to crop up.
Here in Canada, there are still many Bigfoot sightings each year. Now, scientists may finally be able to say that the giant creature was not a myth.
Bryan Sykes, emeritus ¬professor of human genetics at the University of Oxford, has identified a strain of west African DNA on the Georgian-Russian border that he believes could ¬belong to a sub-species of modern humans.
Sykes claims to have found the best evidence that a woman who lived in 19th century Russia could have been a yeti.
According to accounts, she was described as resembling a wild beast, and “the most frightening feature of which was her expression which was pure animal”, one zoologist wrote.
Analysis of her DNA showed that while she was “100% African”, she bore little physical or genetic resemblance to any modern African group.
Experts believe the wandering ‘Wild Woman’ was found lurking in the remote region of Ochamchir in the Republic of Abkhazia.
According to Yahoo News, her resemblance has been described as that of a wild beast, and “‘the most frightening feature of which was her expression which was pure animal”, one Russian zoologist wrote in 1996 according to a report in the Times.
The man who organised various eyewitness accounts of Zana wrote: “Her athletic power was enormous.
“She would outrun a horse and swim across the Moskva river, even when it rose in violent high tide.’”
Zana was eventually “tamed” by the nobleman who bought her as a servant and kept her on his estate in Tkhina in the Republic of Abkhazia, according to local accounts.
Some of the professor’s colleagues remain doubtful given his previous findings – which include a claim that an unknown species of bear might account for yeti sightings in Bhutan.
Sykes has been involved in a number of high-profile cases dealing with ancient DNA, including those of Ötzi the Iceman and Cheddar Man, and others concerning people claiming to be members of the Romanovs, the Russian royal family. His work also suggested a Florida accountant by the name of Tom Robinson was a direct descendant of Genghis Khan, a claim that was subsequently disproved
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