Says former minister Ray MacSharry
All payments from the Exchequer must be means-tested, writes former finance minister Ray MacSharry
IT is going to be a tough Budget but it will have to be humane and protect the most vulnerable. There are, however, areas where we need to give consideration, specifically, to issues that may stimulate the economy.
At that time, it was because interest rates were so high. The problem now is the availability of capital. The banks do not seem to have sufficient resources for the protection of existing jobs and the creation of new ones.
I note where the UK government has set up a special bank with stg£1bn (€1.15bn), to be lent to small and medium-sized industries. We have to do something like this to ensure that the entrepreneurs of this generation can get access to capital for the many great ideas and initiatives they have, whether it be in small industries, tourism, agriculture or the food industry.
We need to do much more in this area and to add value to our own indigenous resources mainly for export. We do not have much growth in Europe or in the world economy, which makes it impossible for us to grow as an exporting country. We have to do more ourselves.
A few areas which we should look at are: the black economy, construction, call centres, an oil excise rebate and a financial transaction tax.
There is no doubt the black economy is growing.
We should consider tax allowances for people who are employing workers on a short-term basis and paying cash.
If a tax allowance was given towards such expenditure, more would be done and people would have to come out of the black economy to participate in this work. This can cover small construction jobs, plumbers, electricians, gardeners, drivers and so on.
In the tourism area, we now earn less from incoming tourists than the amount spent by Irish people on holidays abroad.
We cannot blame them for that due to the kind of weather we have, but for a small additional cost, such as €10 per trip/person, it would not mean much to them — but would mean a lot for the Irish economy.
The rising cost of oil is making it very difficult for industry and is adding to inflation. Consideration must be given for some rebate for the hard-pressed industries of our country.
Another point is consideration be given to a small financial transaction tax, national and international.
The banking debt has to be taken outside the normal budgetary and financial package. We will have to get support for 30-40 year bonds at reasonable interest rates to be paid for by the banks as and when they return to profitability.
Ireland did not cause the world financial crisis. It happened to be first in line when the financial crash came and we had to deal with it ourselves, supported by Europe.
We were not responsible for the recession in the US or the UK, who have printed trillions of dollars and pounds to overcome their difficulties and still they do not have any meaningful growth.
The Irish people have made, and continue to make, their contribution to saving the euro. This has got to be recognised in Europe so that we get support for our banking debt and help to return to the normal markets to secure the finance at reasonable rates to run the country.
Now I will turn to other points. I would say:
In relation to the Government’s strategy of a 2:1 ratio of cuts in expenditure versus increased taxation, I would say that this seems a reasonable approach but cannot be definitive. We must look at all possibilities for savings and improve efficiencies where we can and look at the tax burden on the community.
The Croke Park Agreement can and will have to deliver more, but only through negotiations. The trade unions are responsible people and know better than most that everyone has to make their contribution to overcome the great challenges facing the country. The costs of running government are too high and it is in the interests of all that we only spend what we take in taxes.
Industrial peace is what we all want and it can always be achieved through dialogue, understanding and fairness. The result will always be good for the economy and that is the only gauge.
In relation to the question of allowances and increments for civil servants, I would say that all allowances have to be examined, should be justified and, I am sure through discussion, the necessary savings can be made in the context of the overall review of conditions and practices introduced over the years. Progress will have to be made in this area.
We cannot have a two-tier system of payments for people doing the same job. It will not work because it would not be fair. All must make a contribution, existing and new public servants, because we need the savings urgently.
As to the issue of which is the better option: to cut pay, increments and allowances, or the numbers working in the public sector, I would say that we will have to look at both — and the services they deliver. In future it will have to be what we can afford to deliver.
The Government can decide where the least impact on the services would occur and start there. All job losses should be voluntary and be in the best interests of the necessary services to be provided.
We all know savings have to be made, but the most in need and the most vulnerable must be protected.
The real expenditure is in the areas of health, education, social services, justice — including pay, which means that taxes, social welfare and pay have to be taken into consideration regardless of election promises. The budget deficit has to be reduced.
Also, the tax base has to be widened.
Services can no longer be provided free of charge — except in special cases. Income tax and extra charges, including USC and PRSI and other levies, are too high. That said, I do not think income taxes inhibit growth or affect employment creation.
‘As for calls to introduce a wealth tax, I would say: What wealth?’ I do not believe there is substantial untapped wealth in this country which is untouched by taxation; some maybe…’
All workers are used to paying tax since they began employment. But I do believe that the people who have the most should pay the most and those on salaries and income of €80,000-€100,000-plus could pay more and should pay more.
In principle, I do agree with a property tax based on a fair valuation system, but we must take account of ability to pay for those people who are in negative equity, in mortgage arrears and those who paid very high stamp duty in recent years.
A proper ratable valuation system would be better than a property tax and would be seen to be much more related to the services provided in householders’ own areas such as water, sewage, roads, public lighting, footpaths, parks, playgrounds and environmental matters etc.
As to calls for the introduction of a wealth tax, I would say: What wealth?
I do not believe that there is substantial untapped wealth in this country which is untouched by taxation; some maybe, but not substantial when you take family homes into account or land assets for the farming industry.
But I would agree with those who say that due to the situation the country finds itself in, all payments from the Exchequer must be means- tested. We cannot afford universality at present.
It is not acceptable. At a time when we have robots walking on the moon, it is not beyond the bounds of possibility to introduce a fair means-testing system. Otherwise we will have to tax such payments above a certain income level.
Ireland’s new property (PRSA) price register published today Sunday
The publication of the State’s long-awaited residential property price register today will restore “some confidence in the property market,” it has been claimed.
The Minister for Justice Alan Shatter said the Register, compiled by the Property Services Regulatory Authority (PRSA) using Stamp Duty figures from the Revenue Commissioners, was an essential step in bring first-time buyers back into the market and improving transparency.
The Register – accessible at www.propertypriceregister.ie – puts reliable details on exactly how much houses are selling for into the public domain for the first time and includes precise information on residential properties sold in the Republic since January 1st 2010.
Prices for both cash and mortgage sales are included. The information will be updated on a regular basis and the PRSA said it aimed to published price details within a month of the date of sale of the property.
The register includes the date of sale and the address of each residential property sold and can be searched using criteria including sales by county, city or town, individual property addresses and by year.
However the PRSA stressed that it is not intended as a “Property Price Index” as the details are limited to price, address and date of sale .They do not include such details as property size or number of rooms.
The Minister for Justice Alan Shatter expressed the hope that the register would improve the quality of information available on the Irish housing market and restore confidence to the sector.
“In recent years, because of the steep downturn in the property market, it has been difficult to get accurate information on property prices,” he said. “This uncertainty has led to a lack of investor confidence and has contributed to stagnation. . . particularly among first time buyers.
He claimed the Register would help “to remove some of this uncertainty, restore some confidence in the property market and provide transparency in residential property sale prices.”
The PRSA chairwoman Geraldine Clarke said the register would be “of substantial assistance in helping people make decisions in relation to one of the most important purchases of their lives.”
SLIGO MAN CHARGED WITH MURDER OF EUGENE GILLESPIE
AFTER HANDING HIMSELF IN TO GARDAI
A 29-year-old man has been charged with the murder of Eugene Gillespie in Sligo Town.
Simon McGinley of Connaughton Road, in Sligo appeared at a special sitting of Carrick-on-Shannon District Court this afternoon, charged with killing 67-year-old Mr Gillespie at Old Market Street in Sligo between September 19 and 21.
Ocean FM’s Niall Delaney, reporting from Carrick-on-Shannon, said the court was told that McGinley had handed himself into gardaí voluntarily on Friday night, in a distraught state.
Inspector Jim Delaney gave evidence of arresting and charging McGinley with murder at 1.15am this morning, to which McGinley responded: ‘Guilty.’
An application to have the accused placed on suicide watch was made by his legal representative.
Judge Kevin Kilrane said McGinley should be given a full psychiatric assessment and only then, if required, should he be placed on suicide watch.
There was no application for bail and the accused was remanded in custody to Castlereagh Prison to appear in court again on Thursday next.
McGinley sobbed as he briefly spoke with members of his family at the back of the court, before he was led away.
Former Tanaiste McDowell gives his pensions to charity
The former Tanaiste Michael McDowel & his wife Professor Niamh Brennan.
The former Tanaiste Michael McDowell, has disclosed that he donates his entire State pension to charity, as new figures show that he received what appeared to be an unexpected pension windfall of €143,000 last year.
Due to a mistake by the Department of Finance, Mr McDowell apparently received the biggest political pension of former office holders last year, according to figures that were released on Friday.
Mr McDowell, a former justice minister, received a pension of €173,683 in 2011 due to a back payment.
This included a €142,877 lump sum, which he was owed because the department had underpaid his pension over four years, and a pension of €31,435 for 2010.
Mr McDowell said this weekend that he and his wife, Professor Niamh Brennan, decided to donate his pensions to charity more than a year after he left politics.
“Since 2009, we agreed that everything I got by way of pension we would give to charity,” he said. “Since then, I have been paying everything due to me on foot of these pensions to charity.”
Mr McDowell said he now donates the money on a yearly basis to a number of charities — both Irish and foreign — which he declined to name.
He draws two pensions as a former attorney-general and former minister. In the three years since he decided to donate his pensions, the charities are likely to have shared more than €200,000.
Mr McDowell is one of several former ministers who chose to give their pensions to charity, rather than handing them back to the Exchequer. Michael Noonan, the Minister for Finance, has said he donates his ministerial pension — about €31,000 — to two charities each month.
Other members of the Government who receive ministerial pensions have surrendered them to the State, including Taoiseach Enda Kenny and Tanaiste Eamon Gilmore.
The State paid out €4.1m in ministerial pensions last year, according to the figures in the Department of Finance accounts. The list showed for the first time which politicians surrendered portions of their pensions. Only 27 chose to do so, collectively giving back €178,600 to the Exchequer.
While Mr McDowell occupied the top slot because of the departmental error, the former President Mary Robinson came in second with her pension of €139,496. She voluntarily surrendered €15,499.
Albert Reynolds received the highest ministerial pension at €99,681, followed by John Bruton, the former Fine Gael leader and Taoiseach, who received €91,446. Bertie Ahern, the former Taoiseach, surrendered €14,600 of his €83,000. Michael Woods, the former environment minister, surrendered €4,100 of his €64,100.
Those who did not surrender their pensions included Brian Cowen, the former Taoiseach, who received a pension of €79,738.
Padraig Flynn, the former minister who featured in the Mahon tribunal on planning corruption, did not surrender any of his €47,800.
The European Commissioner Maura Geoghegan-Quinn surrendered her pension of almost €60,000.
Michael D Higgins, the President, also surrendered €6,600 — which was almost €1,000 more than the pension he actually received.
Junior finance minister Brian Hayes said yesterday that the State pension scheme that saw a total of €15m paid out to all former office-holders last year will be reviewed before the Budget. He added that the scheme needed to be reformed.
Ireland’s problem of suicides is not ‘Somebody’s Else’s Problem’
It is all of our problem?
We, and our leaders, cannot continue to ignore the relentless rise in deaths
What is wrong with us? Are we all suffering from what psychologists call a “normalcy bias”? Where we go about our business, eyes turned sideways, refusing to acknowledge what’s happening under our noses? Or perhaps some of us are down with a nasty dose of SEP (Somebody Else’s Problem) syndrome?
Even when faced with the facts we say; “Good Lord, that’s only terrible”, and shake our heads as if it were all occurring thousands of miles away, in a place we can only scarcely believe exists.
In case you’re unsure what I’m talking about, it’s the exponential surge in mental distress, chronic mental illness and, particularly, the relentless rise in deaths by suicide, currently taking place, yes, before our eyes.
Last Monday, Terence Casey, coroner for south Kerry, had six inquests for suicides before him. Six. In one day. In tiny south Kerry.
As Mr Casey said: “There was a time when I might have one, or two, suicides out of maybe six inquests on a day, but now it’s becoming rampant. I never before had six in one sitting”. All the deaths by suicide were male — the youngest was 14. Fourteen.
But surely that must be some other Ireland and not the one where mental health budgets continue to be slashed. On Wednesday, on RTE’s Morning Ireland programme, an obviously distressed Des Kavanagh (general secretary of the Psychiatric Nurses Association) discussed the deaths of two patients by suicide in mental health facilities in Dublin and Kerry last week. He said that in mental health “acute beds have been cut and cut and cut”, that there has been a reduction of “a quarter of the total number of nursing posts in psychiatry”, and that “we’ve been the worst hit of any frontline service in this country”.
Consequently, Des Kavan-agh is a fan of the old, paternalistic style of psychiatric
nursing, where patients share large dormitories and staff control their treatment. Because the “libertarian approach”, as Mr Kavanagh put it, is now demanded by patients and advocacy groups alike; as patients reside in single rooms and demand a dignified say in their treatment, the lack of staff and money needed for this type of care is putting some patients — and no doubt staff — at great risk.
Mr Kavanagh’s comments terrified me. When many years ago I ended up in a psychiatric ward — yes, on suicide watch — I shrank from the horror of the communal dorm. The woman in the bed next to me was chain smoking — I was certain she’d set the worn-out curtains between us alight; the old lady opposite was alternating between loud recitals of the rosary and screaming obscenities to attract the attention of the nurse.
Without meaning to sound trite, I knew that to be forced to stay in such an atmosphere would drive me stark raving mad. I was categorised with a stigmatised illness within five minutes of meeting a psychiatrist, never offered talk therapy and made take two types of medication, one of which I felt was unsuitable for me. A case of psychiatric wham, bam, thank you, ma’am.
I had hoped that this style of cheap “care” was on the way out, but Mr Kavanagh’s assessment of the clash between the new humane philosophy and the pitiful monies allotted to mental health care shows that our Government — and consequently ourselves, (they represent us) — would prefer to wipe the arses of senior bond-holders, European top brass and powerful union bosses than care for our own distressed people.
Meanwhile on that far-off island called, eh, Ireland, official statistics show that 525 people died from suicide last year, a seven per cent increase on the year before, with men accounting for 84 per cent of deaths. And anyone with half an eye out for the truth knows that these statistics are far lower than the actual, real figures. They don’t take account of coroners, who, because of the stigma involved, prefer to protect the family involved and assign the term ‘accidental death’ to what was indisputably a suicide. Nor do they include the many single vehicle road deaths which are, in some cases, also deliberate suicides masquerading as traffic accidents — again, one must presume, in order to protect family from stigma.
And really, who can blame them?
Results of a survey last week (commissioned by News-talk and the Irish Countrywoman’s Association) on mental health showed that while 84.3 per cent of those questioned agreed with the statement “Mental illness is an illness like any other”, 87.4 per cent simultaneously thought that there was “a stigma in Ireland about discussing mental health issues”.
So, the vast majority believe that mental illness is like any other illness, yet the vast majority also believe that there’s a huge stigma involved in talking about it. Which is rather ironic when one considers that the “talking cure” can be very effective for many sufferers.
It would be funny if it weren’t so desperately serious. If people weren’t dying of shame; including the shame that they can’t pay bills, get a job, support their family, cover their mortgage, discuss their problems.
Research director Ella Arensman (National Suicide Research Foundation) said of a recent study on male suicide rates in Cork city that she’d never seen such a strong correlation between economic difficulties and mental health.
In a recent paper called Debt and Depression (Economic Journal) Dr John Gathergood reported that people struggling to pay loans are “three times more likely to have mental health problems”. More severe mental health effects, he said, are found among people who are late with housing or rent payments, particularly those with arrears on their mortgage or those in negative equity.
And commenting on the Newstalk/ICA survey, national president Liz Hall said. “The financial implications of the recession and the levels of emigration have severely impacted the lives and mental health of our members and all Irish families.”
With more than 308,000 people currently out of work in Ireland, with the country losing 1,000 jobs a week; with 107,700 mortgages (and rising) in distress; with between 60 and 65 per cent of mortgages in negative equity; with 1.82 million people left with less than €100 in their pockets when the household bills have been paid, it would seem beyond doubt that many of us, our friends, our neighbours, our loved ones, are at risk.
Strangely, our Government continues along with its normalcy bias, giving the impression that the rise in mental distress and deaths by suicide is clearly Somebody Else’s Problem.
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