Budget was an insult to our most deprived
DESPITE Ireland being the 14th richest country in the world, 8,702 people are still homeless and evictions are rampant.
The root cause of homelessness is the broken housing system and a huge shortage of housing stock.
Given there are more than 70,000 households on the social housing waiting list and more than 8,000 people living in emergency accommodation, the Budget’s target of 12,250 new social housing units falls well short of what’s needed.
Additionally there’s no reinstatement of the eviction ban or mortgage moratorium. The increase in the fuel allowance will not be sufficient to protect low-paid workers from the carbon tax hike, and for the second year in succession there’s no increase in primary social welfare payments.
This impact upon sole parents and people with disabilities who already have the highest rates of poverty and deprivation.
Families around the country are already struggling to feed their children and are unable to pay heating bills. Meanwhile, the 10c increase for minimum wage workers is an insult, as is the failure to restore the top rate of the Pandemic Unemployment Payment when you consider the huge increases in TDs’ salaries.
This Government also chooses not to intervene in securing the Debenhams strikers’ redundancies yet fought tooth and nail to prevent Apple from paying € 1 4 bi l l i on in t ax i nto our dwindling coffers. NOEL HARRINGTON,
Co. Cork.
They’ve lost control
REGARDING Leo Varadkar’s ego trip during his interview with Claire Byrne, it is a pity he wasted a fortnight contradicting the valuable recommendations of Dr Tony Holohan. It shows Leo is not a team player.
The biggest problem in this pandemic is people management.
People are refusing to wear masks on entering shops and are not leaving the premises when requested to do so. Crowds are in and outside pubs. The backdrop to all this is the Government making big, pointless announcements and showing gardaí waving on traffic with highvisibility torches when they have no real powers, such as imposing fines or prosecuting offenders.
Greater power must be given to the gardaí so they may implement fines and sanctions on the public who are not complying with Covid19 protocols.
T. WHEELER, by email. ...ONE wonders, how does this Government expect that the new, Covid- 19 restrictions will be adhered to, when the already established ones are being flouted, publicly, on a daily basis?
On entering a shop today, my first encounter was with a man, who was wandering around the shop, on the phone, not wearing a mask or visor and not maintaining any kind of social distancing.
He purchased ready-for- consumption food from the deli counter and was served by staff who were preparing the food while not wearing facemasks themselves. In this country I believe that aiding and abetting a person who is committing a criminal offence is a crime. Why then is it not a crime for shopkeepers to serve these people who are committing such a serious offence and endangering the lives of others?
Surely now the time has come to make it an offence in law for shopkeepers to serve customers who are not wearing masks.
The situation where pubs are allowed to serve people in what is termed ‘ outside situations’ is becoming absolutely farcical.
What is now happening is the creation by pubs, of spaces that are completely covered in and may have two or three closed in sides. Many of these spaces are quite small and do not facilitate social distancing.
This Government now resembles parents, who have no influence over their out-of-control children.
JOHN TWOMEY, by email.
Some green shoots
THE lockdowns and restrictions have changed our habits. With many limitations, there has been an increase in many areas, more home-delivery food, more books to read, too many Zoom sessions and more gardening.
A quick check of the vegetable seeds section showed few available options as everyone has gone green. It doesn’t seem to be a panic about food supplies but rather an attempt to return to simpler times. The growing of your own vegetables is a rewarding task and the produce is tastier and doesn’t come wrapped in lots of plastic. Even more importantly, it is environmentally friendly.
Look for the good from everything, even this Covid pandemic. DENNIS FITZGERALD, by email.
Putting health first?
THE Government and medical profession are rightly concerned about the nation’s health, so perhaps they could also address other hazards to our well-being.
Let us start with fluoride – that industrial waste chemical that is added to our drinking water for dubious dental benefits and which is banned in the rest of Europe.
Then we have pesticides; herbicides sprayed on our crops and which has been related to the increase in cancer over the last decades, a mortality rate which is frightening. Not forgetting our air-polluted cities, the respiratory problems etc – but then why spoil their present agenda?!